In the Dark Room
by MidnightCereal
Summary: It is a sad commentary on the life of Asuka Langley Sohryu that Mariko Buick is not the worst thing to have ever happened to her.
1. Portrait

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is a Studio Gainax production, its characters created by Hideaki Anno. They say the word, and this story ceases to exist.

It is a sad commentary on the life of Asuka Langley Sohryu that Mariko Buick is not the worst thing to have ever happened to her…

In the Dark Room: Portrait

By MidnightCereal

"Asuka? Are you home?"

"Yeah, Misato," the young woman answered from the floor of the living room, not bothering to look up from her magazine.

Her guardian trudged into the space, obviously weary from yet another day of avoiding the Commander's icy wrath, Dr. Akagi's rampant bitchiness, and Kaji's relentless, harrying romantic overtures.

"Damn Kaji," Katsuragi muttered. Asuka looked up just in time to watch Nerv's Operation Planning Manager shamelessly scratch her butt. "Ouch."

"Should I be concerned -at all- that you're rubbing your sore ass while mentioning Kaji?"

"No you shouldn't," the woman answered, glaring at the smirking teenager on the ground. "Young girls like you shouldn't be thinking ab…you know, we shouldn't even be _having_ this conversation!"

Then Misato did what she always did when she got flustered; she went to the refrigerator for a beer.

The first of many.

"Where's Shinji, Asuka?"

The German snorted as she flipped a page. "What, am I his keeper or something? _You're_ supposed to be his guardian."

"So…" Behind her, Asuka heard Misato tap something metallic with a fingernail. "You_don't_ know where he is?"

The Second Child's head dipped, and she sighed in her upturned palm. "He went to go see Rei."

"Don't you mean '_Wondergirl_'?" the older woman said with a mirth that didn't just touch Asuka's raw nerve; it spilled coffee in its lap and called its mother names. It didn't help that Misato's last word was spoken in a high-pitched, nasal, mocking tone.

"Shut. _Up_."

Asuka heard Misato set the can on a table. "C'mon, Asuka. This is Shinji we're talking about. This is _Rei_ we're talking about. The most I've _ever_ seen them do is talk quietly. You don't have a thing to be worried about."

"I'm not worried," Asuka lied.

"I…_do_ remember him saying something about getting some help with schoolwork…"

"Yeah Misato," Asuka began dryly, "I only graduated from college at the age of thirteen. How could _I_ possibly help him with his homework!"

"Maybe you just need to be a little nicer, Asuka…just… a _little_."

The German girl shook her head to Misato's advice, and perhaps also from the unease that came with the feeling that she had heard that suggestion before…

"What I need, Misato, is to go out, do something tonight."

"You can come with me." Did Misato say that? Yes, she did. But it didn't sound like her for some reason.

Asuka tried ignoring the sickness in her stomach. Couldn't, and her face squirmed. "You'd want me going out with you and Ritsuko? And Kaji? To some pathetic singles bar? Don't I need lavender perfume for that?"

"Not there. But they will be where we are going, too."

That voice, slithering between her ears like cold mud, made Asuka sit up, and she turned to look at its owner, who would have her eyes closed…

They were. _Where we-_

"-are going,"

_you will not-_

"-need lavender perfume."

_Don't._ Asuka could not move, but Misato could, and instantly the woman was standing over her, somehow looking down and through her with shut eyes. _Please…_

"You don't need to do this." Asuka whispered fearfully.

The last surviving Katsuragi smiled.

"_Misato_," Something gnawed greedily behind one of Asuka's wide, panicked eyes. "_Don't_." A raspy sob snaked its way from the teen's clenched teeth as she shook her head. "_Please_."

Maybe Misato heard her, perhaps not. But Asuka's plea did not stop things from now swimming behind the woman's closed eyes. Their movement was slick and eager, and rippled the thin sheet of skin with sick waves as they wriggled. Somehow, Misato was even closer.

"Mis-Misato…_say_ something."

Misato opened her mouth to speak.

Thick, putrid ichor replaced words. Asuka screamed. She still couldn't move. Black bile continued to stream from her guardian's grinning lips from an inexhaustible source. Asuka knew what was going to happen next, and that she couldn't stop it powered the shrieks rising with her every shuddering breath.

Misato opened her eyes. White things, brown things, all small, all wriggling, all squirming over and under each other, all tumbling, countless, from those empty sockets to swim in the black ooze all over Asuka's frozen legs.

And now the creature biting the back of her eye was chewing through it. She tried to lift her hands – they were each a thousand thousand pounds - to clutch at or claw through her cornea to kill it. But she could do exactly nothing. Misato was laughing now and she could do nothing, and she could do nothing as her left eye ripped and boiled like a raw sore, and could do nothing as it ruptured and something came through.

She should fight this. Instead of diving backwards with a defeated wail and tumbling into nothing she should rise like a lioness to utterly crush the laughing, ruined leaking woman with all her skill and hate…

She continued to spin backwards, powerless.

With increasing frequency slick fingers, dead and cold, stole the heat from her back as they probed and slid across her spine. She was still spinning, spiraling downward, away from the light and the sick laughter…

…until finally, a new hand stayed her momentum, and pulled her up.

_It was warm._

Asuka opened her eyes calmly as she swallowed the scream that never failed to gather in her throat when waking from that…bad dream. She blinked to resolve her sleep-blurred vision, and when it had sufficiently improved she looked up to see who it was casting the shadow over her.

"You're done, Shinji?"

When she rose to languidly stretch, he nodded. "Yeah. We're done talking. You're ready to go?"

She eyed him. Then she deliberately scanned their surroundings. First behind him, where a shadow of colossal radius stretched beyond her peripheral sight and blanketed the vast floor of the Geofront; it was closer than where it had been when Asuka had first dozed off.

Now behind her; looming in the far distance fully exposed and gleaming in the afternoon sun stood towers of steel and glass. Shorter structures lay at their foundations like loyal subjects. Finally she looked above her. Nothing but blue and sparse, turbulent streaks of white. She eyed him again.

"There isn't much else to do, now _is_ there, Shinji?"

"No." They began walking.

"But you always ask me that same question."

"Because I'm holding out hope you'll talk to her one day."

"I know."

"She'd like it if you'd talk with her, Asuka."

"Shinji, all I can say to that is, you have _your_ beloved surrogate parental figure…" She craned her neck to the stone arc they passed beneath, reading its inscription though she had memorized it long ago, "…and I have _mine_."

**MAY THESE SEEDS OF THE NEW WORLD**

**BEAR ONLY THE SWEETEST FRUITS**

**THIRD IMPACT MEMORIAL CEMETARY AT TOKYO-3 MEMORIAL PARK**

**3•18•2016**

He said nothing.

* * *

"How is she doing? Is she comfortable?"

As she walked up to Commander Fuyutski's side to look down at Central Dogma, Maya Ibuki, Nerv's Project E Chairwoman, nodded. "As comfortable as someone could be in one of those little metal boxes. But it's only just going to be for one night. She adjusts quickly, from what I can tell." She spared a glance at her commanding officer as she browsed a stack of printouts nestled in the crook of her arm.

"I see." He gripped the railing, and squinted as he always did. It did not matter if he was standing or sitting, teleconferencing with the United Nations or eating a tuna sandwich; in Maya's mind, Kozo Fuyutski was to squinting what Evangelion Unit-01 had been to savage beatings.

"I'm glad that's squared away then," he continued, "All that's left is the AEGIS proposal for tomorrow's meeting." He reached out to her and she looked back questioningly. "Is something wrong?" he asked.

"I…no, sir."

"Oh. I assumed that…that's not the report you're holding?"

She swallowed, and cast her eyesight downward. "No, sir."

"Oh. Well, if you can mail it to me or just put it on my desk in the next few minutes I would greatly-"

"I haven't written it yet."

"…appreciate it." Fuyutski could only stare for a moment, incredulous at the short-haired scientist. His look only amplified the heat of embarrassment that engulfed Dr. Ibuki. She felt small…

"Doctor…you knew about this meeting for a _week_…"

"Yes."

"And that the windfall from this project would fund Pribnow Box upgrades next month, upgrades the U.N. will _not_ pay for, upgrades we desperately need."

Smaller…

"Yes. I know."

"Then how could you not have it ready less than a day before-"

"I don't…have an answer," she half-whispered, desperately trying to keep from drawing an audience. She was failing.

His squinted again, but not from contemplation this time. No…she knew that look well. "I know, Dr. Ibuki…you never do."

"Sachiko has the data from the experiments and we just have to condition it. I _promise_ to have it done by tomorrow morning, sir."

He rubbed his temple in slow, practiced circles. "I know. That's why you're still here. You always get it done…somehow." Confusion passed over his old face.

Maya Ibuki wordlessly dismissed herself to get started. The sooner she could get to work, the sooner she could get the look that Fuyutski had in his eyes out of her mind…

It was disappointment.

Smaller.

Someone snickered.

* * *

Bathed, loose, and comfortably clothed, Asuka walked into the kitchenette of the apartment they had shared with their former guardian. "That doesn't_smell_ like miso soup." She smiled, leaning her rump on a wall.

"I found some noodles and some tomato sauce. I hope you like spaghetti." Shinji answered without turning from his work at the stove.

There, just now, those were the most words they had spoken to each other since they made their way from Nerv. It was always like that, that she would meet Shinji at Misato's grave at the end of his communion, and if a silence didn't immediately dominate the air between the teenagers, it inevitably came a minute, two minutes later. And today, they had maintained it throughout the battery of tests they were religiously subjected to by Dr. Ibuki. They had maintained it on the way back to the apartment and on the path branded into their memory after walking it everyday for the last two years.

She stared at something indiscriminate between his shoulder blades and answered him. "I'd kiss you, Shinji, but then you'd just pass out, and then no one would finish dinner."

"You could kiss me after," he suggested, his back still turned so he didn't notice Asuka's smile fall a bit at the melancholy in his voice. He was hiding something.

"But I wouldn't be kissing just to kill time, Shinji," she purred teasingly, pushing off the wall and moving directly behind him. "You…would have my undivided attention…" She unfolded her arms from beneath her chest, one hand on his shoulder and the other moving up to cup his chin, both gently turning him to face her. "…you think you can handle that, Ikari?"

"Yeah." He calmly and quietly breathed, his measured, easy answer unnerving her for some reason as she looked up into his eyes. There was a time, she vividly remembered, that she could literally look down her nose at him, usually to scream about…something. Usually nothing. She still screamed at him for no good reason, just had to look up now, is all.

"Good," she whispered in return, the sound and smell of bubbling sauce returning her to the present, "then you can handle telling me what the hell is wrong with you."

A dull but persistent ache ran through her as he pulled his face away from hers and turned out of her grip, back to the simmering pot.

"It can wait until after we're through eating," he sighed, his hands moving again to prepare their food.

"Shinji…_look_…I know how you are after you go to see Misato. You've done it every week for the past…whenever-"

"She'd probably like it if you stayed longer, if you came earlier and talked to her."

"I don't doubt that, Shinji, but don't interrupt me and don't try to change the subject, either." She re-crossed her arms, now putting forth effort to abide the familiar tide of anger at the brown-haired boy's evasiveness. "This isn't even about her. It's about what's wrong with _you_ today, _right now_. _Out_ with it."

"It won't be much longer, Asuka. The noodles are getting soft. Just a few more minutes. When you're full. And satisfied…and relaxed."

"No," she commanded, sincerely hoping the Third Child, her roommate, comrade in arms, bringer of food, would not find out just how close he was to a full-on German blitzkrieg. Her fears were unfounded.

"A new pilot's been found. They're going to be here tomorrow, at school."

Hold that thought. "_No_," Asuka repeated, though the meaning and inflection of the word had changed. "I thought…" she started, consciously trying not to stammer, "but there haven't been any Angels in the…_wait_, how the hell do _you_ know about this!"

"Maya told me, today, after the briefing, before we left." He pushed the limp noodles around in the boiling water.

Asuka quickly shook her head side to side as she screwed her eyes closed. She began to speak, the heat in her voice rising. "What I mean is _why_ do _you_ know about this, and _I_ don't? I know the good little doctor is a busy woman, but I think this qualifies as need to know information, Shinji!"

"But you know now," he added quietly. His roommate's eyes narrowed. If his words were meant to diffuse the red-headed time bomb ticking behind him, then he had accidentally cut the blue wire.

"You don't think this is a poor, _poor_ time to show me how perceptive you are? You think this is funny, baka?"

"No, I …she just probably forgot to tell you, Asuka. Like you said, she's a very busy woman."

"Don't throw my own word in my face! I know what I said!" She seethed, then, "You know what? You should've told me after dinner."

And with that, neither teenager spoke for the next few minutes, Shinji steadily working on the food, Asuka intermittently looking at the floor and his back, digging her nails in to her palms. They had learned to do this –allow a few minutes of silence- whenever she they started to bicker. It gave Asuka them a moment to regain her their composure and continue to argue the point of contention in a civil manner.

Like this.

"You know…I can't really say why I'm so worked up over this," she chuckled. When, after a few seconds Shinji said nothing, she continued. "It just bothers me, that's all. I don't think Dr. Ibuki likes me. She doesn't even say anything to me unless it's about those damned synch tests."

It was Ikari's turn to chuckle. "Do you honestly believe that woman's capable of hating anyone?"

"I said 'not like', not 'hate', Captain Hyperbole," she said as she gave a small shrug. "My point is _this_; remember that time I got you that ten Gig SDAT for your birthday, and the jerk at the front desk wouldn't sell it to me at first because I was gaijin? Did I even get an apology from him?"

"Yes."

"That's beside the point!" Asuka responded, quickly shaking her head. "Not that I've done anything to her, but people hardly need a reason for them to dislike you, _or_ hate you." _I should know_, the thought came suddenly, and just as quickly she crushed it. She took a small breath and glanced at the kitchen clock. With that, the auburn-haired pilot was relaxed again. She was getting better at this.

"Maybe, Asuka, just maybe, she knew how you were going to react to this, and asked someone you get along with to break the news to you." He stopped his motions when he heard nothing behind him. "You're not getting mad again…are you?"

"No, I'm not getting mad," she finally said, placatingly so, "I can see your point. But that's a stupid reason to not tell me. I mean, I know I'm not the easiest person to get along with, granted, but WHY ARE YOU SNICKERING!"

"No reason."

She successfully quashed the urge to beat him with something hard, and continued her point. "Even though we're not fighting Angels, we still have one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. Just getting in the entry plug takes about a thousand things to go right, especially with the hunk of scrap sitting at Nerv right now." That's exactly what Evangelion Unit-14 was to Asuka; it was catching a bus to Hawaii when you needed to have been there by jet two weeks before.

"Shinji, I just don't want to be in there when something goes wrong. This place runs on information, and if she's too afraid to tell me something I might not like hearing, I don't want to be in there at all. "

"I see your point, Asuka."

"We're done fighting, and I'm not dying over some mistake. I don't need to be here anymore, you know? It isn't like there's anything keeping me here."

"…Dinner's ready."

A few minutes later they were sitting down at the table, a sizeable helping of pasta between them, when Asuka began complaining about the meal's…sparsity.

"Sorry." Shinji grinned sheepishly, for a moment looking all the world like the introverted fourteen year-old he once was, and not the introverted seventeen year-old he was now. "If I knew I was going to make spaghetti I would've ran out and got some meatballs or something."

"That would've been a first..." Asuka mumbled under her breath, smiling to herself darkly.

"Huh, wha?"

"I'm gonna quench my thirst," she piped, getting up and moving to the refrigerator. "You didn't drink the rest of the Caplico, did you?"

"There should be some left," he said, arms crossed on the table as he waited for her to sit down before eating, "the only thing that's mine is the vegetable juice. I don't drink that sugary stuff anyway. There should be as much in there as when you last drank it."

Asuka snorted. "Okay, okay, no need to get our neural clips in a bunch. I see it anyway." She emptied the plastic bottle into her cup, deftly tossing the empty container in to the trash before looking at the mountains of food stockpiled in the open appliance.

"There's not a goddamn thing in the fridge, Shinji."

He sighed knowingly. "I'm going to the store tomorrow, right after school, since we don't have to go to Nerv tomorrow."

Nerv. Refrigerator. Liquid refreshment. Here it comes…

"That thing was never empty with Misato here," he breathed wistfully before leaning back in his chair.

_I never thought anyone could actually fill a refrigerator with fifty gallons of beer…_

"It was just…strange. You should've seen it the first day I got here. Heh, I never thought anyone could fill a refrigerator with fifty gallons of beer, you know?"

…_but she did it._

"I thought, 'how could anyone survive like that, on instant ramen and alcohol?' But she did it."

Asuka just retook her seat, looked down at her pasta and smiled wanly. "Shinji, dear, do you know how many times you've told me that story?"

"A lot." he said quietly, his eyes closed, trying to imagine something.

"Enough times to make me want to lock you in a room with a moose. I'm all for remembering what a drunken slob Misato was, but that's not the best picture to have in mind when you're chewing something…soft."

"She was beautiful."

_That_, he had never said before. Not about Misato. Not about anyone. They said nothing and just ate for a long span of minutes, Asuka knowing she would have to be the one to fill the dead air.

"This could use some parmesan cheese," she added.

"I'll pick it up-"

"-after school," she finished for him, "I know. After we meet the Sixth Child. Girl or boy?"

"I forgot to ask."

She twirled the noodles around her fork and took another bite before throwing a lazy smirk across the table. "Are you up to it, Third?"

"I'm always ready for it, 'dear'."

"Pervert."

* * *

The starless night receded as a purple dawn seeped into and over Tokyo-3. The violet itself bled away as the sun inevitably breathed warmth onto the metropolis, and as it rose so did a crescendo of noise, a thing that filled the once stagnant air with life until it overflowed, filling every alley, funneling into every tunnel, and tumbling across the perimeter of what was now known as Memorial Crater, a byproduct of the Self Defense Force's overzealous and misguided assault on Nerv Headquarters.

The origins of the rim of rock that ringed the basin of the Geofront was a basic fact, common knowledge in every apartment, every house and broken home and loving hovel and mud hut, every hall of government, every grade school home room, to anyone and everyone that had access to information in the last two years.

However, exactly _how_ the storm that had raged over the old Tokyo-3 became so dire, why the Japanese government felt it was necessary to atomize the mechanized fortress city above the Geofront, a hundred thousand questions of little and great consequence, could only be answered by a select few. They were blessed with that knowledge as they stowed away in corridors overlooked by JSDF commandoes, afraid to breath or blink, as they hid under the bodies of coworkers, friends and C.O.'s, as they strafed enemy soldiers when daring to look over their command terminals…

Or as they cowered beneath those desks, crushing their seat cushions against their chest as they sobbed with fear, hearing nothing but the jackhammer pounding in their breast, their ragged, shallow breath, hot blood thundering in their ears, and endless rounds of hot lead punching into bodies.

The smells, Maya Ibuki recalled, shifting anxiously behind the wheel of her small Toyota, were worse than the sounds. It was the memory of those scents that lurked within her, often resurfacing at their leisure, it seemed. They chose to make themselves known with a gentle breeze tainted with bakelite, or as she would lay still in her furo, sinking until her chin formed a meniscus with the pool surface, cheated of the opportunity –the _right_- to relax her taxed psyche; she forced the steam that hugged her ashen face and pushed into her throat and nostrils to remain a humid vapor, and simultaneously kept at bay the black sooty tendrils it threatened to become if she let down her guard.

Very, very soon after Third Impact it became clear to the young doctor that if she were to keep her job and salvage her health, could no longer afford that 'if'. So Maya kept moving. Her state of mind, her work regimen, when she showered or bathed, when and sometimes where she slept were in a state of perpetual flux. If there was any discernable macro-scale pattern to the micro-managing of the woman's life, it was beyond her. If any pattern had been recognizable it had been uprooted and replaced with reliable, safe chaos.

As a consequence, chaos leads to conflicts of interest. At the moment, smack dab in the middle of the Tokyo-3 morning rush hour gridlock, her CVT Daikon wasting precious hydrogen, Maya seriously considered getting out of the car, leaving it on the A-21 and taking the tram down to the Geofront. She was fairly certain when she came back later that day her vehicle would no longer be there. So she stayed put, shifting anxiously. And wondering for the googleth time how in the wide world she had maintained the necessary composure to earn a doctorate in computational numerical analysis, a notoriously unforgiving field of knowledge.

As the brake lights dimmed ahead of her she crept closer to the exit ramp. She turned on the radio, filling the space between her ears with a pop tune that wafted through the cabin in soft waves. She changed it. Interference relented to the force of hard rock electric guitar riffs that assaulted her ears. Harsh vocals and sharp drums ceaselessly concussed her temples and disrupted linear thought.

Perfect.

Maya knew, slowly but sure as the rolling tide, her unpredictability was driving her underlings and superior insane. If not for the facts that she had been a Nerv veteran for almost half a decade, and that Maya's mentor had made sure her one and only protégé knew the Magi as well as she herself did, she would've been cut by frustrated and impatient overseers long ago. She truly felt sorry for Commander Fuyutski, Hyuuga, Aoba, and other long-time Nerv officers.

She felt worse for _her_ protégé, a tall raven-haired girl just out of Nagoya Technical Institute, Sachiko Fujiyama. No…no, it was Fugimura. Wait, it _was_ Fujiyama, because she had met the girl's parents during her commencement. In the four months Sachiko had stayed at Nerv her sempai's tutelage had consisted of scatter-brained and half-assed explanations of the intricacies of the super computer's bio-processor (the details of which quickly drowned her poor student in a sea of confounding techno-babble), and week-long bouts of phone tag.

Maya didn't expect herself to be the brilliant and attentive task master her Dr. Akagi was, but she expected herself to be competent. She expected herself to be able to nurture Sachiko's fragile confidence in her own fledgling abilities, and Maya was afraid the way she was now, she was quite literally mentally incapable of ever doing any of those things.

She needed to try harder, for her own sake, for Sachiko Fujiwara's sake, for the sake of her coworkers, and for the Children. _Both_ of them. She_would_ try harder.

The brake lights dimmed ahead of her once more and she suddenly smelled hot solder.

Maya shifted anxiously.

* * *

Asuka's classroom at New Hakone High school was drenched in morning sunlight as she sat down heavily in her seat and robotically logged on at her desk kiosk. The chatter in the room grew as her peers streamed in. She glanced at one boy slugging his satchel over his shoulder with one hand, and then at the girl she and Shinji came in with.

Asuka never thought she would ever have reason to use the word 'buxom'. It being a descriptor of physical feminine beauty, and having no desire whatsoever to feed another woman's ego, it never found a place in the German's lexicon, until today.

Her head perched in her palms as she read through new mail at her desk kiosk, she considered their class representative, the brunette Yukie Utsumi, and could see why her boyfriend (a basketball player at Municipal, a school nestled in the hills beyond the opposite side of the crater) wanted to be near her.

Today, Asuka had met and held a short conversation with them on the train ride to school with Shinji; the veteran pilot stopped just short of asking why she was riding the tram when she knew Yukie lived a short walking distance from her own school. Then she had noticed how Yukie and her boyfriend were sharing each other's personal space, how Yukie's smile leapt from pleasant to dazzling when he favored her with a roguish grin, and realized heavy rail wasn't the _only_ thing her classmate was riding. Asuka stole a glance at Shinji, who was steadily typing something at his own terminal.

Yukie's…recreational activities…weren't any of her business, and she didn't care either way; after all, in almost two years of having classes together, her talk with the class rep on the train was their first real interaction. The buxom (ha!) girl had always tried to befriend the Second Child, and in the past, in junior high, when Asuka was a force of nature and her ego was a pure untested thing, Yukie would not have had to make the effort.

Asuka had nothing against the girl, who, for obvious reasons, reminded her of Hikari (The middle Horaki had visited once a few months earlier, and Asuka hid her profound disappointment well when the young brunette softly and politely explained why her family would not be returning to a city ravaged by war and rife with memories of personal tragedy. Hikari hadn't mentioned Touji once.)

That year, that war, had shattered Asuka completely, had savaged her spirit. She had crawled back from her personal nadir reforged, but undeniably and irreversibly damaged. Where there was once a solid wall that shielded her heart from those things that wished to harm her, there was now a multifaceted bulwark. Hurtful whispers and guilt seeped through it, sections bulged and compressed under the weight of frustration and suspicion, desire and disappointment. And fear. Now, Asuka had to guard against taxing that barrier.

Yukie was nice and popular (and persistent), but she didn't need Utsumi to be her friend, and Asuka had only spoken to her on the train because they were forced together in a cramped space. Declining Yukie's overtures of friendship then and there would've been…rude. _Feh_, Asuka Langley Sohryu, Evangelion pilot elite, world class child prodigy, master of five languages, afraid of being impolite to some horny schoolgirl. Yes. She had been in Japan _far_ too…

Just then another girl with short black hair strode into the room, and Asuka did not recognize her face. The Second Child silently appraised this new person as she shifted weight from one foot to another at the head of the class, arms clasped behind her. Her head was steady but her eyes, a rich hunter green, set in an Asian face with light freckles, found something, someone new to look at each time she blinked. They settled on the Japanese flag at the back of the room.

Blink. On the courtyard outside one of the large side windows. Blink. Her black knee-high stockings as she rocked back and forth on her loafer-clad heels and then the fluorescent lighting above her. Blink. Then on Shinji. Blink. Then on Shinji. Blink. Blink.

She was appraising him.

The girl blinked again and suddenly they were on Asuka, unassuming, non-threatening and earnest, but studious nonetheless. Blink. Blink. When the girl's smile matched the light in her eyes, it hit Asuka that she already knew who they were. Tentatively, she smiled back and uncharacteristically broke eye contact first. If Asuka had ever had that kind of openness, she sure as hell did not now.

Yukie walked up to the new teenager and after a curt bow, chatted amiably with her. She was tall, Asuka noted, using the class rep as a frame of reference. Taller than her, at least as tall as Shinji, who now stood about half a head above the Second Child. Yukie politely but abruptly ended their talk and stood next to the other young woman as their teacher, Mr. Yoshikawa, walked in and set his briefcase on top of his desk. He shuffled some papers before looking up at Yukie, with whom he exchanged a nod of confirmation, and when the pretty brunette turned around again, her face was all business.

"Everyone rise! Bow! Please be seated!"

Chairs scuffed the tile floor and all eyes were forward as Mr. Yoshikawa came around the desk, standing where Yukie had been at the tall girl's side, and spoke.

"Class, you probably noticed the new face in here today. She'll be joining us for the rest of the year, so I want you all to give a warm New Hakone welcome to…um…"

"Buick," the new girl finished for the thin middle-aged man, glancing at his graying temples before turning her attention back to her new classmates. She took a small breath. "Um…Mariko Buick. I…I'm originally from America, and, um…but I've been living here, in Japan, for the last three years or so…and, uh…Nagoya for the last two years, and…and I like photography. I'm a photographer. I like to take pictures. And…"

"Welcome to class 3-B, Ms. Buick," Mr. Yoshikawa gently interrupted after a moment. He turned toward his desk, not noticing Mariko's mouth open and then close. "I'd like to go over yesterday's notes on Laplace Transforms, so if Ms. Buick would please take her seat next to Mr. Ikari we can get started. Shinji, please raise your hand."

It did not escape Asuka that Mariko was already moving before her apartment mate gave himself away.

_So the new pilot's a girl. Her name's Mariko._ Asuka's small mouth turned downwards ever so slightly. _And she's sitting next to Shinji._

End of Portrait

Random A/N: First. Fic. Ever. Can ya tell? This is actually the first story I have ever voluntarily written in my life, and for some reason it turned out to be thirteen chapters long. I enjoyed writing it, and I hope you will enjoy reading it. I'm thinking I'll submit one new chapter every week, barring an intrusion from the real world. So I guess I'm saying I will never meet that one week goal.

No, really, I seriously cannot believe you got all the way through that. Lots of character development, huh? I think so at least. Hopefully, I can do something interesting with the **New Pilot** angle that hasn't been beaten to death with a familiar stick. I'll see, I guess. And so will you. Thanks for reading.

Next Chapter: Mariko Sue


	2. Mariko Sue

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is a Studio Gainax production, its characters created by Hideaki Anno. They say the word, and this story ceases to exist.

It is a sad commentary on the life of Asuka Langley Sohryu that Mariko Buick is not the worst thing to have ever happened to her…

In the Dark Room: Mariko Sue

By MidnightCereal

From her vantage point at her desk, Asuka Langley Sohryu contemplated how truly stupid boys were.

She ate her lunch of leftover spaghetti, peering outside at the males animatedly arguing about something, probably stupid, as they scarfed down their meals under the sun. The hot-ass sun. While many things had been altered or had entirely disappeared in the country since Third Impact, Japan's endless summer had remained. Scorching sun continued to give way to persistent showers, which gave way to blistering heat, which gave way to relentless deluge.

Shinji was out there somewhere, and she just knew he and the other guys would come in smelling like shrimp bento and hot road kill. Yum.

"Hrm…that must be_really_ good to say that out loud," said a light voice behind her. When Asuka turned, Mariko was already beginning to straddle a seat and pony up to the red-head's desk. "I guess if you're still in here, then you got my message?"

Asuka nodded as she chewed some noodles and made eye contact with the girl when she finally swallowed. "I got it. I would've been in here anyway, though. It's like a sauna out there…without the hot rocks and women in towels giving you strange looks."

Mariko leaned forward on her crossed forearms as she gave a small laugh. "Yeah, they'll probably come in smelling like road kill or something." Asuka grinned broadly at that as she poked at the last of her spaghetti.

"What?" Mariko asked.

The German girl just shook her head. "Nothing…did I really say 'Yum' out loud?"

"Like it was your last meal. But forget about it." She raked one hand through her messy hair while the other waved dismissively at Asuka. "I do all kinds of weird stuff when I don't think anyone's around. I did kinda sneak up on you."

Asuka nodded once more as she closed the empty plastic container. Mariko seemed nice enough, but it was time to cut to the obligatory chase. "Why'd you wanna talk?" she asked. When the other girl looked slightly perplexed, Asuka sighed and elaborated. "You're message said, 'Asuka, I want to talk in the classroom at lunch', signed 'shutterbug'. You're 'shutterbug', right? You said you were a photographer."

"Oh…" Mariko gracefully responded, "Oh, I…no…it was nothing in particular. It's just that we're gonna be seeing a lot of each other." She was silent for a moment, her green eyes hidden beneath long bangs as she found something interesting on her shoe. She took a small breath before she spoke again.

"I've heard a lot about you, and Shinji, and now…I finally get to meet you guys in person. I just wanted to be the one to make the first impression, you know? That's all. I hate it when I meet someone, and they think they know me because somebody else had already told them about me." Mariko looked up again, her eyes soft. "I was just thinking…in our line of work, we have to be able to trust each other, you know?"

Trying very hard not to feel like an ass, Asuka exhaled and relaxed in her chair. "Okay…alright. I didn't mean to accuse you of anything. You just have to know I'm not the…trusting type." Mariko gave a small bob of her head as she pulled the short right sleeve of her white top past her thin arm and over her round shoulder.

"Look…Mariko? It's Mariko, right?"

"Uh huh."

"Look, Mariko, if you ask me, you don't have to take this piloting job too seriously," Asuka said easily, "Not now, at least. The Angels? They're gone. We only have one Eva between the three of us. We haven't done anything except perform boring synch tests and run battle simulations for the last two years, almost. So this 'trust your fellow soldier' thing is a few days late."

"I figured that. But I still think I had to talk to you now. I want you guys to like me."

"We _do_ like you," Asuka assured her, internally blanching not only at Mariko's shameless honesty, but her own. "Well, _I_ like you."

"Shinji told you he doesn't like me?" Mariko immediately asked as dread crept into her anxious voice.

Asuka rolled her eyes. "Oh _please_. Shinji likes anyone who doesn't immediately punch him in the face."

"Oh…well that's good, then," Mariko paused, "I think."

"It _is_ good," the shorter girl confirmed, "and consider this a good first impression…" she grinned, "Sixth Child."

Moments later, class 3-B trickled back into its homeroom. The guy Asuka sat next to reclaimed his chair, a sheen of sweat covering his hands and face. Her nose wrinkled when noon-day city funk rolled off the boy in thick waves.

"Yum." Mariko said absentmindedly from her seat next to Shinji, and Asuka could not help but laugh.

* * *

"Hey, this place we're going to, it sells those spicy rice cracker things, right?" Asuka inquired as she set her kiosk to sleep mode.

"Yes, Asuka." He was also shutting down his terminal for the day, class 3-B filtering out of the hot room.

"Let's get some soda, too. I had the rest of that vegetable juice, there's nothing to drink at home."

Shinji looked momentarily incredulous. "You drank my Itoen?" he asked, "but you don't even _like_ vegetable juice!"

"And some coffee," she continued, oblivious to her roommate's whining. His shoulders slumped slightly as he slung his satchel over his shoulder and shoved his history text past the open flap.

"I…okay, Asuka."

"Mocha blend." They stepped through the threshold into the emptying hallway.

"Okay, Asuka."

"Let's get some pork-filled buns too."

"Okay."

"Pork-filled, _not_ bean-filled."

"Okay, Asuka."

"Those beans just _do_ something to you, Shinji. _Horrible_ things. I couldn't sit within twenty feet of you last time we had them. You hear me Shinji? Niku-man or nothing!" She paid little mind to the underclassmen loitering near the exit stairwell, their bodies wracked with stifled giggles.

"Okay, Asuka," he said ahead of her, his voice calm as he bounded down to the first floor two, four steps at a time. Raucous laughter echoed down to them.

"Oh! Pizza bread! Get some of that!"

"Okay, Asuka." They were outside now, eyes adjusting to the light.

"To make udon, you need some flour noodles, right? And some brown rice."

"Okay, Asuka."

"Eggs."

"Okay."

"And some chicken."

"Okay."

"Dark meat."

"Okay, Asuka."

"We need some rice, too."

"_What the he-_…okay, Asuka."

"Don't forget the milk, Shinji."

"Okay, As-…" he stopped when he realized that his horrible, horrible coworker wasn't the one who had suggested the last item. He followed Asuka's blue eyes until he too was looking at Mariko, the new girl rising from a plastic bench just inside New Hakone High school's front entrance.

"You were waiting for us?" Asuka asked as she and Shinji walked towards Mariko, already knowing the answer. Of course she was. She's new here, she's a pilot, she's going to want to know about us. To an extent. She'll want us to know about her. To an extent. She's a pilot.

Mariko made a noise of confirmation and fell in step with the veterans. "It's hot out here, but I just needed to move around some. I can't stay in one place too long before I start getting anxious."

"Then I can tell you're going to _love_ Nerv," said Asuka, her tone suggesting that by love, she meant_ rather scoop your eyes out with a rusty spork than sit through another round of psychograph evaluations_. "So you're excitable, huh? For a second there I thought we had ourselves a Mary Sue."

The new girl blinked. "A what?"

Asuka shook her head. "Never mind."

The taller young woman scratched the back of her head and gave a resigned smile. "Yeah, I don't know what I'm going to do for synch tests. I asked Dr. Ibuki if I could listen to my SDAT in the tube."

"You've talked to Maya already?" Shinji asked as his eyebrows lifted.

"Yeah, plenty of times, actually. She said I couldn't bring it in because the one I have isn't LCL-proof, and I didn't understand a lot of what she told me, but I think the basic idea was that I'm supposed to concentrate."

Asuka nodded in confirmation, of both the need to focus and that the girl would've already spoken extensively to Nerv before even arriving in Tokyo-3. Hell, Asuka had known Misato since when she was ten, Kaji when she was eight, back when she was nothing but a short-tempered, loud-mouthed, yet brilliant German braggart_. But I'm much different today_, she reflected, _Now I'm tall_.

"I'm not too worried, though," Mariko continued as they walked out through New Hakone's front entrance, "I'm pretty good at adjusting to things, even if they're difficult. Heh, I mean…" she gave a short chuckle, "I mean, it's not like I'm going to be fighting Angels the first moment I get in the entry plug, you know?"

Mariko's playful expression diffused a bit when Shinji's neutral face had sculpted a tight smile, his eyes downcast. Perhaps sensing the need for a change of subject to ease the sudden tension, she licked her lips before saying, "So…um…we going home after groceries or what?"

_Ha ha._

_Ho ho ho ho._

_What?_

"What?" Asuka numbly asked, echoing her internal monologue.

The other girl hesitated to speak, then took a small breath. "Well…last night I had stayed in one of the quarters they had at Nerv. There wasn't much of a point in me calling you guys yesterday or last night, anyway. Even though I don't have a lot of stuff, what I _do_ have won't be here until tomorrow." She paused and returned Asuka's stare. "I didn't think this was new info…I would've thought the doctor would tell you something like that."

Like a bullwhip Asuka's eyes went to Shinji, glaring poison daggers.

"What're you looking at _me_ for?" he said hurriedly. "Maya only told me a new pilot was coming, she didn't tell me she was going to be living with us!"

Mariko's voice was small behind Asuka as she spoke. "Um…oh. I'm sorry…this isn't going to be a problem, is it? Because if it is-"

Asuka swiveled back to look at the girl, her face gentler but still at a loss for suitable words. "I-"

"It won't be a problem." Shinji's hand softly clasped Asuka's shoulder and his voice filled with genuine warmth. "We'd love for you to stay. There's an extra room in our place that's begging to be filled."

Against her considerable will, Asuka's eyes widened.

Mariko seemed not to notice and wore a grateful expression…which became panicked as she audibly gasped and put a hand to her mouth. "My bags are still in the class!" She began drifting towards the school. "All my books and clothes and my _camera_…"

"The room should still be open. Go ahead and get it," Shinji said behind the Second Child. "We'll be right here." His grasp tightened ever so slightly as Asuka bit her lower lip and watched Mariko's retreating form close in on the school entrance with surprising speed.

"Wow, she's pretty fast."

The Second Child clenched her jaw and fought to extinguish the burning indignation in her throat as Shinji tracked their new roommate's tall, lithe, sinuous form…

Failing miserably, she drove the hard sole of her shoe into the boy' shin.

"You know what the weird thing is?" he asked as he rubbed his bruised leg. "You handled that better than I thought you would."

"Shut. Up." She had yet to turn around to face Shinji, experimenting with facial expressions until she found one that matched her rotten mood. Asuka found it, whirled and unleashed it. "You're handling this well yourself," she paused, smiling, "harem boy."

"Harem boy?" he repeated, tasting the phrase like sour milk.

"It suits you, Shinji. I should've seen it before, but I ignored it, because I just couldn't understand how any girl regularly taking her meds would see anything in you." She slowly stepped closer to him for effect. "I still don't understand. All I know is what I see in front of my face, and it's written all over _yours_ that you can't wait to get your pervy hands on her!"

"Asuka, she's not going to stay at Nerv when we have an extra room where we live." He looked her in the eyes. "You can't tell me that you'd have her stay at that place. I don't think you're that selfish a person, Asuka."

"I think I know what kind of person I am, Shinji, just like I know what kind of person _you_ are. _You're_ the selfish one." She crossed her arms over her breasts and frowned mightily. "I saw how you looked at her butt when she was running back."

He looked exasperated. Good. "Asuka, no I wasn't-"

"_Yes_. You_were_," she intoned as her eyes dangerously narrowed, "you ass-craving scum."

"I do _not_ crave ass," he shot back, his face weathered by equal parts indignation and disbelief that he actually had to say _I do not crave ass_. "Besides, how would you know where I was looking? You were looking at her the whole time, too. And you make it sound like I'm some gigolo. Give me a break, Asuka, there isn't one person that's shown interest in me since I've mov-"

"Mana."

"-ed here. I…" He sighed. "Okay. Mana. So I was liked by one person, but one person hardly makes a ha-"

"Mayumi."

"-rem. Look, two people don't…" he closed his eyes and sighed. She could have sworn he had just said a prayer. _Ha. Shinji Ikari. Praying to God._ "Asuka, you can't tell me this isn't the right thing to do. You can't tell me you know me better than I know myself, either."

He opened his eyes calmly as a warm breeze slid past them in the school yard. Asuka did well to swallow the breath that caught in her throat as their eyes met.

"C'mon, Asuka. Give her a chance before you make her some enemy of yours. You'll finally have someone to talk to about…girly things with."

"I already live with one, you bony fruit." He smiled at that for some reason; he wasn't taking this seriously, anymore.

She became silent as she thought of the right thing to say, and considering her options, promptly blurted out the worst thing possible.

"So you're giving away her room? Just like that? Misato wouldn't have wanted-"

He changed.

"**How do you know what Misato wanted?**"

Without warning, a new voice inhabited Shinji, and it was a cold, smoldering deflagration fueled by complacency and compassion. The outside world fell away as Asuka looked for these things in his hard face, coming away only with the jarring realization that she had seen and heard this somewhere from someone before…

Oh no. She suddenly knew she had to say something, come up with anything. _Anything_, it didn't matter, so long as this…_thing_ left the boy she knew and returned to the prison she had fashioned for it a thousand memories ago. _When did this happen? How?_

Failing miserably, pre-packaged thoughts stumbled clumsily off Asuka's dry tongue before she finally uttered something intelligible. "Shinji, that's not what I-"

He cut her off, his voice slicing through her soft words. "_Save it_. You can pretend like you're against this for Mariko's sake, but _don't_ drag Misato into this. That is _not_ the reason you don't want her with us."

_All he needs are the glasses, the beard, the gloves…Who the hell are you?_

The sound of a door opening drew her attention and she saw Mariko with her school bag in one hand and another bigger one she readjusted across her body. Grateful that her two new roommates kept their promise and stayed put, she enthusiastically waved. Grateful for having a reason to ignore the boy's baleful, steadfast glare, Asuka waved back.

Without looking, she already knew that everything on his face that stripped her of righteous anger and replaced it with an entirely new despair would be gone. Shinji Ikari as she knew him would return, and when not keeping to himself would complain and whine and apologize in a most pathetic manner, just as he had when she had first met him on the windy deck of the Over the Rainbow all that time ago. As they trekked to the grocery store, Asuka wondered, for the first time, if that boy had truly survived Third Impact.

* * *

They bought spicy rice crackers. They bought soda, vegetable juice and coffee. Mocha blend. They bought pork-filled buns, and flour noodles. They bought brown rice, eggs, some chicken legs and some rice. And finally milk. And in the end, they were all outwardly thankful for living in a country with efficient, punctual, and expedient public transportation.

"That rice was heavy," Shinji quietly declared, kneeling at the coffee table in front of the TV.

Asuka knelt at the table's opposite side and nodded a reply as her mind was divided into a number of parallel thought processes warring for attention. One was devoted to the noisy game show in front of her, which was currently making as much sense as a girl with blue hair and red eyes. Damn doll.

The second was on their new roommate, coworker and classmate, who had excused herself after their carryout dinner for some sightseeing before the light disappeared over the city's rolling mountains.

The third was on Maya Ibuki, whose behavior, now that Asuka had reason to put thought to it, had gradually become rather eccentric. Eccentric was good for washed-up B-list celebrities and rebel billionaire grandfathers that built absurdly perilous and understaffed theme parks miles from civilization.

Eccentric was _not_ good for the most powerful woman in an organization teetering on the edge of oblivion with every decision she did or did not make. Neither was it good for the person that was named their legal guardian after Misato had passed. And in the light of the fact that both Asuka and Shinji were charging full steam into adulthood, the German teen was thankful that Maya's guardianship consisted of no more than filing paper work and endorsing their weekly stipends. Shinji was right when he insisted Dr. Ibuki had no particular dislike of her. It was deeper than that, and it was something Asuka had chosen to ignore until it directly affected her, yesterday and today.

Something about Maya was…off. The Project E technician Lieutenant Maya Ibuki had diligently, efficiently, and above all, reliably built an enviable reputation behind Ritsuko Akagi. The woman's competency, her metronome consistency, were uncanny for a…how old was she then? Twenty-three? Twenty-four years old?

At the time, there were a plethora of reasons for Asuka to have taken her for granted, as Nerv command had, during the most crucial battle since literally the dawn of man. The old supreme commander and sub-commander had routinely handed the keys of the most powerful computers in the world over to a bridge bunny hardly a year out of college. As much work that young woman had seemed to put into justifying that trust, the Project E Chairwoman Dr. Maya Ibuki had seemed to put just as much work into destroying it.

Asuka immediately rattled off eight mandatory staff meetings their guardian had missed in the last year alone. Maya had no discernable hours at Nerv headquarters, and you were just as likely to catch her there as you were not. Sometimes she would arrive inexplicably disheveled, or visibly tired after leaving work a full day earlier. Sometimes you would have a conversation with her, and she would fail to finish a thought, randomly leaping from one topic to another to yet another, all completely unrelated.

Synch tests would on occasion keep the Children at Central Dogma late into the night; Nerv's labyrinthine, sterile hallways were soundless but for the incessant buzz of phosphorus lights and the muffled sobs in the office of the Project E Chairwoman. If you looked carefully enough you could glimpse a form between the blinds pacing back and forth like a caged tiger, then stopping, crouching and rising, then repeating the bizarre ritual over and over again…

Asuka Langley Sohryu's experiences had taught her -with relentless, excruciating regularity- that people inevitably change when presented with a situation that forces them to question what they are. For a very long time, Asuka was certain that change always did far more harm than good.

_It doesn't have to be that way_, she thought as she languidly glanced at the boy sitting across from her, _and just because Maya changed for the worse doesn't mean she can't change again. It doesn't have…to be…_

"Stop that," she said suddenly, her words to Shinji shaking him out of his own reverie.

"Wuh? Stop what?"

"This..." and she demonstrated by propping her elbows on the table and moving her steepled fingers in front of her mouth, while setting her face with a dead-eye gaze and morose scowl.

"Oh." He unlocked his fingers and his eyes followed his hands into his lap. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay. You just look…don't worry about it. It's okay."

"Not just that…about today, too. I didn't mean to scare you."

If the boy had looked up to read her face, it was unknown to the girl, who had turned back to the television and resigned herself to the talk she knew was coming. "I know you didn't, Shinji." She rested her eyes, suddenly heavy. "You didn't scare me."

"I didn't mean to imply that you didn't care for Misato, Asuka. I know you did. But when I talked to Mariko at school, I thought about her, being one of us. What if she's like us? What if she's had it rough like us?"

"You're saying the she's got more baggage than the dealer room at a hobo convention, and that if she lives here we can share the load?" She shook her head no to the image of the Shinji in Asuka's mind nodding yes. "You can't assume that she _wants_ help. Even if she did, it's not just something you force on people. You can't even assume she _needs_ help. She seems perfectly fine to me."

"I think we all _look_ perfectly fine-"

"Besides," she interjected before he could finish his point, "Rei lived by herself and she turned out…" She stopped and irritably sucked her teeth as she realized she had just designed, proposed, financed, built, operated, optimized, and then finally walked into her own big fat trap.

"There were a lot of things about her that I couldn't do anything about." Shinji said. "Rei was trapped. I honestly think she was born to be sacrificed. She never had a chance to get out. Not like we did. But…that was all the more reason to help her, wasn't it?"

Asuka said nothing as she stared at and through their set, her shoulders rising as she slowly took in air.

"She must've felt so…alone. In that little dirty apartment. Nobody should have to go through what we did alone. As much pain as we went through, we never_had_ to do it by ourselves. We just weren't strong enough."

His voice carried again after a silent second, forged with a gentle but firm determination. "But we are now, Asuka. I'll bet Mariko has her own demons, just like us. And if she's here with us, we can be strong for her, too." His hand was on hers, reaching out over the lacquered wood to curl over her own palm. "The easiest way to do that is to let her stay here."

"I know that," she said.

"Thank you."

His hand was still on hers, and she did not move away. In the minutes that followed she remained facing away from him, and presumably he was looking over her shoulder at the television when she heard commotion at the foyer.

Mariko grinned from the entrance of the room, her camera clutched in her fingers. "_This_…is the most beautiful place I've _ever_ been," she proclaimed before plopping down on the sofa across from Asuka. "I'm not even exaggerating. I took like sixty pictures. I could've looked out over that crater all night."

The red-head favored her with a small but genuine smile. "Yeah, I can see why you think it's pretty. But you probably wouldn't feel that way if you were here when it was made."

The short-haired teenager glanced up inquisitively before continuing to rifle through her digital exposures. "Bad moment, huh?"

"It was a whole lot of bad moments, strung together over the course of the day. Never mind, though." Asuka scooted over to look at Mariko's plasma display. "You already met Ms. Asai?"

"As I was coming off the elevator when I left. She said she has a dog. You're allowed to have pets here?"

"No." Asuka shook her head as images replaced one another, their neighbor in question, the path at Ueno Park, three shots of the left side, the center, and the right side of the crater (to be amalgamated later), and people, dozens, students and salary men and tourists, all smiling and flashing victory signs, seemingly happy to pose for a total stranger. Asuka shrugged. "No one is gonna say anything to her about it, though. This place is only about half full anyway, and half of those people work at Nerv."

At that, the black-haired pilot turned off her camera and looked at Asuka as Shinji stood from his place at the table. "Maybe I should ask to be moved into one of those empty blocs, then?"

When the boy disappeared into the bathroom the Second Child tore her eyes from him and had them meet Mariko's. "No. We don't want that."

"Are you sure, Asuka? I mean, I don't want to get in your and Shinji's way or anything, you know?"

"Yeah, I…wait, no I_don't_ know," said Asuka, trying hard not to look unpleasant, "What do you mean 'get in our way'?"

Asuka could see the other girl mulling over her last words, and the words she would speak next. "I was just guessing that you like being around him…am I wrong?"

_Ohhhhhhhh. Crap._ The seasoned pilot rubbed her forehead with a raised palm, ignoring the dull stabbing ache deep in her left eye socket. _Oh, what the hell…_

"No, you're not._Yeah_, I _do_ like being around him."

"I don't mean to pry-"

"Yes you do." Asuka put her hand back down on her thigh as she immediately replied. "But that's alright. It isn't like I can deny it or anything. And he may not look it, but he _is_ good for some things."

"Oh, I'm sure he's good for all sorts of things, you know?" Mariko grinned devilishly, voice dripping with an innuendo that suggested she was not talking about his ability to make a mean rice pudding, although rice pudding may occasionally be involved. Her face fell when she noticed her counterpart's, currently doing everything but smiling.

"Oh…" Mariko quietly espoused, "I just thought that you two living here for all this time-"

"_No_. We're_not_," Asuka stated, unable to hide her irritation or justify to herself why she had a right to be angry at Mariko. Had she not just unequivocally stated it was okay for the girl to pry? Wasn't it stranger that she and Shinji weren't spending the night in each other's room after living together for three years? Wasn't Yukie traveling literally halfway around the city to get laid? How long had she been seeing _her_ boyfriend?

_But Shinji's not my boyfriend._

By now her new roommate was holding her hands up defensively and back tracking at full speed, but Asuka waved her off, allowing herself Mariko a moment to relax. "Don't worry, Mariko. We're not serious." Asuka snorted. "We're not anything, really."

"So…I don't have to worry about you two digging wedgies outta each other's butts, or anything like that?"

The Second Child just shook her head full of auburn hair. "Shinji didn't survive that mess just to have me kill him for goosing my backside."

Seemingly beckoned by the indirect death threat, the Third Child emerged from the bathroom.

"You mind if I go in before you, Asuka?" Mariko asked, already rising from her seat as the other young woman extended her appendages and stretched her lean muscles, giving a head shake while yawning expansively.

As Mariko disappeared into the hallway Shinji replaced her, moving to the refrigerator. Asuka wordlessly joined him as she retrieved a cup and brushed past the young man to grab the Caplico cola.

"How can you ever get to sleep after drinking all that sugar?" he asked as he poured some orange juice for himself.

"I think about all the things you're good for, Shinji. And I pass out." She downed the drink in a long gulp.

"It's been a while since the fridge has been this full-"

"Oh give it a rest, Third!" she yelled, slamming her empty cup on the counter and pointing a finger at him. "I'll be damned I if ever let _you_ dig a wedgie out of _my_ ass!" And with a dignified humph and a stiff back, she pivoted on her heel and stormed to her room.

The kitchenette was quiet for a moment, and then Shinji poured some Caplico into Asuka's cup and took a small sip.

"It…_tastes_ fine…"

End of Mariko Sue

A/N: Okay. I think this needs to be said. It is quite understandable from they way chapter one ended, and from passages in this chapter to fear an insertion of DJ-Croftian proportions. Let me assure all readers, right now, that is _not_ the reason this character -Mariko- was created. I would think that would be evident from the title of this chapter, and if it isn't…well…now it is (thank you, dennisud).

This is not an Asuka/Shinji story.

This is not a Mariko/Shinji story.

This is not a Maya/Shinji story.

This is not an Asuka/Mariko story. Well…maybe if we…_no_. No, it's not.

This is not a young sexy anime icon/ other sexy anime icon story of any kind.

It is not shonen-ai or shoujo-ai.

The only ACC I was thinking about as I was writing _In the Dark Room_ was the NCAA Division 1-A league, in which my beloved Terps battled (and this year, mostly lost to) Duke, UNC, N.C. State, and Virginia on a weekly basis.

It's not a pro-Asuka story, and the conspicuous absence of one blue-haired, red-eyed female Angel hybrid does not an anti-Rei story make.

It is a story. Nothing more. Nothing less. This does not mean that _In the Dark Room_ will not, at one point or another, include elements of the above. I can say with complete honesty that when I began writing, I didn't add this character or that, or any original character for the sole purpose of mating them like Shitzu. They only show up if they are essential to the story. Inclusion will never, _ever_ be based on my personal distaste for the character.

Acknowledgement: Let it never be said that I do not give credit where credit is due. The Internet Movie Database is, as you are likely aware, an obscenely exhaustive encyclopedia of movie production information, film trivia, memorable quotes, and, if you've ever visited its message boards, home to world-class pissing contests.

In a valiant attempt to show that arguing on the internet is about as productive as having a breathing contest in outer space, a few passionate posters argued about the of integrity of Quentin Tarantino's work; it took approximately six minutes for the…discussion…to degenerate into a battle to prove who was less heterosexual. At one point, one poster called another "ass-craving scum." Should I be concerned that something like that made me laugh? Anyway, I ended up putting those words in Asuka's mouth, and I have _Kiriyama 187_ to thank for it. Thank you, kind sir, wherever you are.

Remember this from chapter one?

"_Hopefully, I can do something with the **New Pilot** angle that hasn't already been beaten to death with the stick of familiarity."_

I've decided to retract this statement, as it makes me sound like a pompous ass...BECAUSE THERE ARE NO ORIGINAL NEW PILOT STORIES. I LIKE WRITING IN CAPITALS. Though I believe I've steered clear of obvious ACC pitfalls, it's better to scale myself down a bit, just in case I don't blow your damn mind. With that, I'm gonna find a two-by-four with a nail in it and a Palomino carcass. Thank you for reading and for your criticism. Ja.

Random A/N: _"If you can think of something interesting to talk about, IM me. Or IM me anyway. That way, we can pretend that we have something to talk about, and then realize that we actually don't. Either way, I'm gonna be eating Carolina Sausages. And isn't that what America's all about? Carolina Sausages? If you don't think so, IM me; I'm pretty sure I can convince you that they are what America is all about. Or to throw yourself in front of a bus. Either way, I'm gonna be eating Carolina Sausages. And isn't that what America's all about? Throwing yourself in front of a bus?"_

Anona…Anonom….Anonyma…Some Guy That Smelled Like Cardboard

Next Chapter: Focus


	3. Focus

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is a Studio Gainax production, its characters created by Hideaki Anno. They say the word, and this story ceases to exist.

It is a sad commentary on the life of Asuka Langley Sohryu that Mariko Buick is not the worst thing to have ever happened to her…

In the Dark Room: Focus

By MidnightCereal

Kei Sakamoto's face was frozen by a nameless distress for a long second. After that second her brows knitted and twitched, her breath hitched involuntarily, and the moisture that had been steadily gathering in her brown eyes spilled down her flushed cheeks. Kei stood in the newly empty corridor, sorrow personified. It was about then that Maya had sincerely wished she had not asked if Kei's office mate, another engineer named In-jin Chi, had also survived the massacre.

She had to ask. After twenty three weeks away from Nerv -days filled with endless and excruciatingly thorough joint U.N. and Japanese government inquiries, wondering if she escaped the wholesale slaughter initiated by Seele and the JSDF only to be imprisoned for crimes against humanity- she had to know, here and now, who it was she was going to see again. Not In-jin. Not Reiko, Yuri or Genma. Not Chelsea, Yukino, or Big Rob or Misato.

Not Ritsuko.

And suddenly Maya was moving, embracing Kei. It was all she could do to reign in her own tears.

"They…they're all gone…" Kei managed when she could finally choke back her despair. "They _killed_ them…like dogs, Maya! He was burning! He looked at me and In-jin died burning!" Kei's good arm shuddered against Lieutenant Ibuki's back. "He was _burning_…" Then Kei wept again, and Maya let her regain her composure before speaking to the engineer.

"They're not _all_ gone…" Maya motioned to the door in front of them. "…there are people -a _lot_ of people- behind this door. They're all just as ready as you and I to make new memories…okay?"

"O-okay." And with that, Sakamoto pulled out of the clench, ran her fingers through her tightly pulled-back black hair, and calmly stared at the threshold. "Thank you for that…how are you so strong after all this?"

Maya did not answer, devoting her entire will to quashing the sudden, bitter, mirthless laughter rising within. The other woman did not press, and together they entered.

It was one of the largest rooms in the main complex, but it still filled Maya Ibuki with crushing sadness that the number of people standing or sitting or leaning against its walls could've filled the space twice over. Sub-commander (no, _commander_) Fuyutski was standing at the head of the enormous ovular table, his long, weathered face calm. Did he always look that old? Hyuga, Aoba, and a woman she did not recognize were standing and holding a low conversation before they noticed her and waved. She returned it, but did not go over, choosing instead to further survey the room.

She estimated ninety, maybe a hundred people. Maybe. Then there were another hundred that weren't here, she knew, those that were too angry or too broken mentally or physically. The Second Child, Maya darkly mused, was probably all three as she currently sat, alone, in the newly reopened Nerv infirmary. The German girl was still imbued with the remnants of her old pride, and didn't show the first two when the tech visited the teen an hour before she found Kei in the hallway.

There was nothing, however, that could hide the third thing, not rolling down the sleeve on her surgically repaired right arm, nor dipping her head to mask the gaping hole where a beautiful blue eye should have been shimmering. Oh no, Maya had the distinct pleasure of being the only person –aside from the team of doctors doting on Asuka- that knew exactly where _and_ how severely the girl had been so savagely maimed.

An image on her laptop during Asuka's final, futile last stand, when victory seemed almost within reach, suddenly flashed on the back of Maya's eyelids as she blinked. It was Unit-02's left occular signal destabilizing, fluttering and finally collapsing onto itself, the afterimage of the orange plasma momentarily seared onto her retinas as the red-head's scream ran through her like lightening.

Suddenly, Maya knew what she could do for Asuka Langley Sohryu. It was a poorly-kept secret that Maya Ibuki deeply respected Ritsuko Akagi yet questioned her morality. The young tech openly questioned the ethics of the dummy plug system, and by extension, the nature of Rei Ayanami's existence.

Now, finally, actual good could come out of this science. She couldn't do anything for Rei, who had not been seen since Third Impact. She _could_ do something for Asuka. She could do something for Shinji.

Who was here.

"Today we will review a preliminary restructuring plan developed with the Hamburg and Massachusetts branches," she heard the commander say as she eyed Shinji leaning forward and clasping his hands together, elbows on knees.

"But I first want to thank everyone for finding the courage to bring themselves here today, even after everything that's happened." Shinji was hardly breathing. "I'll also ask you to forgive those that chose not to join us. We've all suffered, and they've chosen another way to cope."

There, Shinji blinked. He _finally_ blinked.

"Know now, with absolute certainty, that Nerv has survived this, and will continue operating under the auspices of the United Nations. Under what capacity is unknown at the moment."

Maya had an idea of what capacity that would be. That Nerv was still operational, and that high command wasn't shackled in some European brig waiting for judgment to be passed, had all to do with three wise men sitting in Central Dogma. From a purely analytical standpoint, abandoning such supreme technology made little, little sense; the U.N. would need people to tend to Naoko Akagi's brainchild.

Shinji's eyes met hers and then something indiscriminate on the floor in front of his chair. They stayed there as Commander Fuyutski continued his speech.

"Whatever capacity that is, all that matters is that we're free of the beasts that have defined this organization since its inception. That is something I never thought I would have the priveldge of saying, but I can now, thanks to men and women that bore our crosses, at detriment to their own happiness."

Fuyutski paused and then looked over to where Maya was standing. No, in front of her, lower. "Shinji, please look at me."

The despondent Child did not move at first, and then slowly and deliberately sat up and swiveled in his seat to meet Fuyutski's earnest gaze. Maya turned away from the emptiness in the pilot's eyes.

"You and I both know that the words haven't been invented that excuse what you were put through, you and Rei and Miss Sohryu. And Mister Suzahara. Nobody who has ever worked at this place, and I mean _no one_, wanted this for you. That includes your parents, _both_ of them."

Ikari looked on, impassive.

"I won't bother trying to validate that or placate you with weak apologies, so I will just say thank you. There's a place for you and Asuka, if either of you choose to stay here. Our resources will at all times be at your and her disposal, whether or not you decide to remain."

The old man motioned to behind Ikari, to what was left of the First Branch's six-thousand and twenty two scientists, technicians, soldiers and doctors.

"But you should take a look behind you, at the faces of these people. You saved them, and they all know it. Whenever you pass them or someone on the street or see your classmates, you should feel proud. If this is the result of Third Impact, no one has a right to complain. We all have a second chance-"

"Not everyone had a chance."

That was Hyuga. Why was his expression so different from the one Maya felt on her own features and saw on the faces of nearly everyone she had looked at? Anger flowed like magma, genuine, righteous, and barely contained beneath the surface of his bookish exterior. It seeped into the man's naturally docile voice, permeated his words…and for some reason was being received with total indifference by the brown-haired pilot.

"I'm glad you have that look on your face, _Shinji_," Hyuga continued, and the venom with which he uttered the boy's name rushed the camaraderie from the room like air from a crushed diaphragm, "because now everyone can see the look that this…_hero_ wore when he was saving the world. I was about to thank him, too. Then I remembered; I know better."

"You mean it's not enough that he got put through hell?" someone, a man, immediately, indignantly responded. "He's just like us. I don't need to know anything else to thank him."

"Don't listen to Hyuga, Shinji," a woman in a far corner said. Kei.

Hyuga turned in the direction of his first opponent. "He is _not_ like us. You know why?" he asked, pointing straight back at the Third Child with a rigid, accusing finger. "Did you have any other choice except to fight, or hide, or beg for your life just to save yourself, I mean besides _dying_? No? Me neither. But _he_ did. He could've made everything right," the snap of his fingers crisply reverberated in the stunned silence that ruled the conference room, "like that. Just like _that_. We were all being murdered, and you know where he was, what he was doing? Hiding. _Hiding_! Under some, some ass-fuck stairwell, just waiting for someone to put a bullet in his head."

Maya could only stare with a detached fascination at Makoto Hyuga, a person she had simultaneously learned to associate with calm professionalism and the goofy awkwardness of a fifteen year-old fan boy. That man had been replaced by his serious, angry identical twin, a man that was by the second being consumed by an immeasurably deep resentment, who visibly fought to unclench his jaw before speaking once more.

"You make this world, and it's just like the last? Fine. You bring back everyone that was alive before Third Impact? _Bueno_. But…sitting in a corner? Are you fucking _kidding_ me? We're all hiding and fighting and praying, and we're hoping we live long enough to be saved and you're not even _TRYING_?"

He took a small step, another, one more toward Shinji Ikari, who had not moved a muscle during the Lieutenant's indictment. "I _don't_ thank you, because you gave up. _YOU GAVE UP_!"

Maya flinched as she felt the last three words more than she had heard them.

"There are people, Shinji, hundreds of people that are dead that didn't have to be. Hundreds of people. _Dead_. Died waiting for you. _Hiding_ and _dying_ for _you_." Hyuga's young face finally, slowly began to resolve the ugly rage that had contorted it. Then, in an empty and nigh-audible whisper, "Looking for you."

With his last three words, the source for his nearly tangible animosity was clear to Maya.

"Hyuga," she called gently, "who did you see?"

He looked at her guardedly. "What?"

"I…I saw Ritsuko." She turned her eyes from Shinji to her associate.

His mouth hung open for a moment and then he closed it along with his sad, tired eyes. "Who do you think?"

No one said anything then, not the minute after, or the minute following. For a short while Fuyutski-sensei bore holes into the side of Makoto's head, and then his subordinate turned fully to meet his gaze, unwilling to back down, seemingly steadfast in his position…which was what? That Shinji Ikari should live the rest of his days in shame? That the boy wasn't deserving of a little slice of happiness, ever?

"I trust you are finished, Lieutenant?" the commander finally asked.

Hyuga shrugged. "I just wanted the _savior_ here to know where I stood. He's going to have to think really hard about how he's going to live this down. I almost feel sorry for him." With that he broke eye contact with his superior and scanned Maya, Aoba and Shinji in a quick arc before moving towards the door.

"Lieutenant!" Fuyutski shouted.

"I don't think anyone wants me here right now. Half our staff isn't here anyway. Just send the slides to me like you'll do for them." He reached for the digital chevron marked 'open'.

"Get the fuck back here."

Hyuga's finger and Maya Ibuki's spine froze at the chill of Gendo Ikari's order. Logically, Maya knew that Gendo Ikari could not have been in the room issuing commands to subordinates, that what was left of the supreme commander had been found in the cavernous room of Lilith, nothing but legs and a lower torso, as if it was rent from its upper half by some enormous malevolent oni.

Shinji, his son, was standing, and oh, what the woman would have given to have had the lost and fragile boy that had been sitting in his place just a moment ago, ages ago.

Shaking with rage or fear or confusion or something else entirely, Lieutenant Hyuga's head twisted over his shoulder to venomously glare at the Third Child. "I…I don't think you should be saying…ANYTHING…to me right now-"

"I'm not going to ask you again," Shinji easily told the unstable man. _It was easy for him…_

For just a second longer Makoto Hyuga's digit remained extended and hovering over the 'open' chevron, and then he spun on his heel with a terrible swiftness. "What?" He stalked toward Shinji Ikari with maddening focus, the fists at the end of his pumping arms clenched into tight clubs. "What? _WHAT_?"

Just when Hyuga had been standing in front of the son of Ikari long enough for Maya to conclude that her former coworker was, miraculously, staying his hand -and not pummeling the sole object of his hatred- the Eva pilot bowed.

As his wild eyes darted from person to person behind his black frames, Hyuga somehow looked nonplussed and incredulous with spectacular ease. "You don't think," he licked his lips, "that this is going to make up for…what _is_ this?"

"I'm not expecting anything from you," Shinji confessed, "I just want you to know where I stand." This, Maya concluded, was being calculated by the fifteen year-old. Every word, every movement made and not made, the pitch of his voice –already deepened from when she had last seen him five months ago- all calibrated for maximum effectiveness. And whether he realized it or not, Hyuga was falling for it, because he remained silent as Shinji remained doubled over.

"You're right. About everything. Everything you said. About my weaknesses, how they controlled me. I killed all those people and I might as well have shot them like those soldiers did. It's easy to kill people when you're already a murderer."

The thing that charged Hyuga with his righteous bravado wasted away with those words, and its departure slackened the twenty-four year-old's shoulders and loosened his fists. He was definitely listening.

"Dad was right to bring me here. Who else does my job better than me? It doesn't matter if it's Angels, or civilians that don't get to evacuation shelters in time. Or friends. I can kill anything now, without even trying." Shinji shrugged. "I don't know if I'll ever be comfortable knowing that about myself, but just accepting that…that should count for _something_…right?"

No other sound than Shinji Ikari's indifferent voice was audible in a room hosting one hundred men and women. Hyuga just looked down at the back of the Third Child's head, now only daring to blink.

"I killed Misato Katsuragi that day. I know it. I am sorry-"

"I got it," Hyuga finally said, "I got it. I got it-"

"I am _not_ finished. Shut up."

The man just stared down at the bowing teen before his mouth closed with painful slowness. Smoothly, precisely, Ikari rose. "I am sorry," said Gendo's son, "that she is gone, nothing more. _Not_ because I took her away from _you_."

_He meant it_, thought Maya,_ just now when he shrugged, he meant it..._

"So be angry at me, Hyuga. Scream, threaten me, give me dirty looks, call me the devil, evil. I don't care anymore."

Then he looked beyond the glasses and the confused, myopic eyes. _Into_ Hyuga. "The only thing you will _not_ do, _ever_, is tell me how I should live. Or do you hate me enough to crush Misato's last wish? Because if you do…" Something raw and ugly and black permeated Shinji's expression before he could successfully purge it. "…I'll make sure you get to know me really well." That look again, and this time he did not try to rid himself of it. "I promise."

…_I'm scared of Shinji Ikari._

Hyuga breathed little, said less. What was there to say? The gauntlet had been thrown down at his petrified feet, an ultimatum delivered by the son of a tyrannical and unscrupulous mad scientist, a man that had outsmarted the entire civilized world for the past two decades, and this boy had apparently inherited all of his father's less appealing traits. Spontaneously, without warning. You could see it in Makoto Hyuga's face, the defeat that came with the knowledge that he was outclassed and thanks to his sudden vitriolic soapbox filibuster, outnumbered and unwanted. Why was he still standing there?

"I'm finished. You can leave now."

_Ah_.

Maya watched Hyuga's back as he marched out with as much dignity as he could muster, which looked like very little. By the time she had turned away from the empty hallway beyond the door and back to Shinji, he was sitting again, small and slouched, facing the front of the room where the commander still stood.

"Um…let's get started, shall we?" Fuyutski smoothly transitioned. The sound of laptops being awoken and note pads being rustled was everywhere at once. Maya grabbed a seat next to Shinji at the table. She had to say it now, before the mild commotion died down and the lights dimmed.

"Hyuga'll come around. Don't worry about what he said," she whispered. Her hand crept to his slumped shoulder and landed like a feather.

"I know…but it's okay if he doesn't. If…if I don't honor what Misato wanted, if I don't find my own answers, then she died for nothing as far as I'm concerned. That can't happen."

Pleased that he had at least answered and thoroughly relieved by his gentle tone, she worked up her courage. "There's something I want to do for you and Asuka…"

* * *

"Dinner? That does sound good. You really don't have to, though…"

"I know I don't, Shinji, but that's why it's a treat, isn't it? Besides, I'm your guardian and I hardly do anything for you two. I don't want Mariko to get the wrong idea about me."

"Misato was the same way. You don't need to feel obligated to do a thing."

"Wow. You know, Asuka was right about you."

"Huh? W-what do you mean?"

"Sachiko, what's Mariko's status?"

"Her heart rate's a little above normal, but data from the first synch tests for all previous Children are similar. She's just a bit nervous. Synch rate holding at thirty-three percent."

"What was Asuka right about?"

"Sachiko, open the com-link. Can you hear me, Mariko? How are you feeling?"

"I can hear you…I don't feel queasy anymore. Asuka was right, you get used to breathing this stuff once you relax."

"Maya, c'mon…did Asuka say something about me? What did she say about me?"

"Lower the plug depth to minus five."

"Yes ma'am, lowering plug depth."

"Mariko, you're going to feel a slight increase in pressure. That's perfectly normal. Tell me if you start to feel discomfort."

"Okay…Asuka was right. Does LCL always smell like blood?"

"Hang in there, okay? It won't be much longer. If we get a good reading in the next minute we'll be done for the day."

"Heart rate sixty-eight, systolic at one-twenty, psychograph nominal, synch rate holding at…thirty-one percent."

"…That's it? I suck at this, don't I?"

"Everyone does at first, except Shinji here. I was sitting right in Sachiko's seat when he came in and hit…wait, I…Shinji, you remember your first synch rate?"

"Can't you just tell me what she said?"

"Sachiko, mark the time and file this data dump."

"The time is 1711 JPT, data dump 16-A."

"Mariko, you can relax now. They're going to drain the cage, and when you get out you'll have to empty your lungs. From what Asuka tells me it's best if you exhale to get as much LCL out before trying to breathe normally. After that, just go to the locker room and get dressed. You can go home after that, okay?"

"Sounds delicious."

"Pardon?"

"Roger."

"Emptying cage."

"What did she say? What did Asuka say about me?"

"That you were really, _really_ easy to tease."

"Oh, I…oh. You know, I'm not really…oh."

* * *

"Oh, Maya wanted me to tell you we're all going to dinner on the weekend. Her treat."

Asuka's humph could be heard even as she pulled her blouse over and above her head. "Doctor Ibuki? Voluntarily spending time with us? Now _that's_ really weird."

"She seemed to relish the idea," Mariko diplomatically stated, peeling off the black neoprene plug suit. "So I'm not trying to tell you your own opinions or anything, but I don't see how anyone would not want to be friends with that woman. She tries really hard, you know?"

Asuka paused in undoing the hook on her bra. "Then you can tell she's hiding something too, can't you?"

"Isn't everyone? Here, at least? Whatever it is, it isn't affecting her job."

"Oh, yes it is." The red-head tore open the seal on her new plug suit. "She didn't tell us you were coming here until the night you arrived. We were all probably in Nerv at the _same_ time, and didn't even know. We didn't know you were staying with us until you told us at school."

"Okay, yeah, but how is that _her_ responsibility?"

"_Mariko_…she's our legal guardian, mine and Shinji's. And now she's yours, too."

As she glanced over her shoulder, Asuka was oddly relieved that she saw Mariko truly frown for the very first time. "She…didn't tell me that."

The Second Child pulled the suit up to her hips and turned fully to the other girl, who was gathering a towel and washcloth. "See what I mean? It's okay to be a little absentminded when we're talking about remembering birthdays and people's names, and that's all. But that isn't all here, and it never was. She could get us killed while we're in those little tubes or fighting an Angel."

Mariko wore the look of someone pretending to consider another's opinion while secretly thinking of something more pressing, but Asuka finished anyway. "I like Maya as much as you seem to. But I can't trust her. Not fully."

"Do you think…" The short-haired teen suddenly lost, and just as suddenly regained her voice. "…you think we'll have to fight Angels? I thought they were gone."

Now wondering why Mariko had initially trailed off, Asuka looked into the girl's eyes, which were not on Asuka's own, but below, at…oh.

Giving a dramatic sigh and waving her hand, Asuka rolled her eyes. "Go ahead," she commanded exasperatedly, "just ask, right now. Get it over with, get it all out of your system."

"Angels…they did _that_ to you?"

_If Angels had done this to me_, _it would be so much easier to deal with_.

The German looked down at _that_, which was not just one thing. If it was just one thing, she wouldn't be relegated to a lifetime of beach trips wearing one-piece bathing suits.

_That_ was an elaborate and chaotic network of countless off-white scars running across her torso, ridges that rose above and trenches grooved below the surface of her undamaged skin. As one very stupid girl had once put it in the locker room during P.E., it was 'as if she had been mauled by a pack of angry wood chippers'.

"Not Angels," she stated simply. "During the battle before Third Impact, the enemy had Eva's also-"

"This all happened at the _same_ time!" Improbably, Mariko's green eyes widened even further.

"Just about." _Over the course of one minute and forty-eight seconds. _"They had some…weapon that could pierce my A.T. Field."

"I thought you just felt what an Eva felt, though."

"Yeah." Asuka shrugged ineffectually. "Me too." She shrugged again and pulled the rest of the suit over her bare shoulders.

"I'm sorry I asked about it, then. I didn't know it was so…_sorry_. I didn't mean to stare-"

"Don't be sorry!" Asuka interjected irritably as she slammed her locker with some force. "You meant to stare and to pry and you're not _really_ sorry. Just be upfront about it and don't be _sorry_. I'll tell you if you're hitting too close. You'll know right away." The plug suit hugged her body with a soft hiss.

The new pilot ran a hand through her short LCL-soaked hair before she nodded. "Okay. I…that's fair enough. I'm the same way, actually."

**What if she's like us? What if she's had it rough like us?**

"Shinji used to do that all the time, apologize for _nothing_ and…never mind. Look, I'm not pissed that you asked. I understand. I'm a mess down there. But it wasn't as bad as it looks."

It was worse.

Rescue teams had cut her out of the remains of Eva Unit-02, the girl nearly a corpse herself. A hundred and eighty-two individual punctures, lacerations and gashes were identifiable when she had initially been hospitalized in Tokyo-2. Many ran parallel to each other a uniform width apart, stenciled in from her sternum down to her floating ribs. Rows of exact punctures formed bloody arcs across her abdomen, thighs and back, as if she had been repeatedly bitten by a giant feral man.

Her right arm had been split down the middle from the webbing between her fingers to her elbow. She was fortunate the instrument that had caused the injury was so precise, as repairing the limb would be that much easier. Fortunate.

A Delvoye Cloaca substituted for her own stomach while a team of doctors took two weeks to plan and perform surgical repairs. A month later a particularly deep gash between her shoulder blades became infected, and she was fed a potent cocktail of antibiotics to kill the bacteria.

After a week of waking in the middle of the night violently ill, the infection had disappeared. The wound on her back had never fully healed. Nevertheless, doctors told her she was lucky the gash wasn't any deeper, or the bacteria might've reached her spinal column.

Surgeons found two exit wounds –each fifty microns in diameter- in the back of her skull during the procedure to remove her ruined eye. MRI's were consistent with those injuries and the two small holes in her left orbital socket; something had pierced her brain case.

It was a miracle an operation wasn't needed to relieve pressure on her brain to accommodate some type of swelling. It was a miracle that only once every other week she felt dizzy or suddenly lost her balance. It was a miracle she was watching the back of Mariko Buick retreat to the showers in stereo.

Asuka didn't know how many laws, how many codes of ethics Maya broke, how many lies the woman told so that she could grow the Second Child a new left eye. And Asuka didn't care, to be honest. The German tried squelching the small knot in the pit of her stomach that never failed to grow when she thought of it.

How long was it in between the time she had been transferred to Nerv medical and she had regained depth-perception? How long should something like that take? Was the one she had now the first they grew, had they made mistakes, had to start over? How many sky-blue eyeballs were sitting in some…place in the bowels of Nerv, in some vat of LCL, waiting for a transplant that would never occur?

Did they stop at the eye?

The knot grew larger as she stepped out of the locker room. Shinji and her did not often talk about their time at Nerv before Third Impact, but he did tell her about Rei. _All_ about Rei Ayanami. Once, when she had made as full a physical recovery as possible, they had went down to the Room of Gaf with Doctor Ibuki, farther down than Asuka thought the facility ever went, deeper than she ever wanted to go.

If it was some attempt by the Ikari boy to make Asuka feel some measure of sympathy for the First Child, it had failed. If anything the discomfort she felt when she dared turning her thoughts to Rei had multiplied. Before she saw the tanks, that person was merely everything Asuka wanted never to be; willfully obedient, unquestioning, her desire to live (truly live and not just breath and blink and sleep and eat) wholly crushed, as was so blatantly evident in Rei's dim, bloody eyes, her perpetual frown, and her monotonic, clipped speech. Defeat, given human form.

Those reinforced fiberglass walls were full of portent. Asuka could see herself, dozens of her, floating empty husks that snapped to her as one when they sensed her standing among them. Neither life nor death was reflected in their collective gaze, only the mindless thirst for the soul they waited to claim. Empty, floating, staring, waiting dolls. _Smiling_-

"Maya's waiting for you, she just wants to do a few-_OW_!"

Shinji massaged his newly bruised shoulder as Asuka slowly lowered her clenched fist, panting heavily.

"Serves you right, dork! Who told you to sneak up on me like that?"

"_Sneak up_? I was standing right in front of you, and the hallway's empty except for us, how-"

"Okay _okay_, I'm…" She fought to dampen her frayed nerves with a final deep breath, "sorry. Maya's not in her office, is she?"

"No, why?"

"No reason."

"Oh…what were you thinking about?"

"…Rei."

"Did…you want to talk about it-"

"No."

"Okay."

Silence. Then she spoke.

"Why is she staggering our synch tests, again? Doesn't she know this is _really_ inconvenient? Ritsuko didn't have a problem doing three pilots at once."

He shrugged. "Different people, different system. Maya's good, but probably not like Doctor Akagi. She doesn't want to make any mistakes."

She rolled her eyes and snorted. "_God_, that woman's so retarded. I don't do her job, but I mean, _please_, it's a simple synch test. How can you screw _that_ up?"

"I'm going to go home to get some dinner ready…please be nice to her, okay?"

"Aren't I always?"

"Yeah, you've just been on her since Mariko got here."

"I'll be on my best behavior, _dad_," she responded, curtseying in a most exaggerated manner.

"That's my little girl," he said proudly, patting her bowed head as he walked past.

Thirty seconds later he limped into the locker room.

End of Focus

A/N: Yeah, yeah I know…Shinji would never say those things. I know. But hey, I'd think that being forced to fight Kaiju for the father that left you a sniveling snot-ball after you witnessed your mother disappearing, standing by helplessly as the best friend you ever had was crushed into a mangled, bloody pulp, being absorbed by a giant biomechanical hell-beast then being subjected to uncompromising self-interrogation, being forced to kill the only person that ever told you they loved you, watching the only significant mother-figure in your teenage life being gunned down…

What was my point, again? Oh yeah, _Watermelon_: Nature's Rugby Ball.

Random A/N: In the Dark Room: No Need for Omake

Asuka frowned. "You're supposed to be a photographer, right?"

The back of Mariko's head nodded as she fumbled with something, careful not to trip over the tripod as she stepped over a leg to tweak something else small and plastic. "Yup."

"How long is it supposed to take you to set up that camera?"

"As long as it takes to get it right."

"Think you can get it _right_ in another minute? We've already been standing here for three."

"Well, it's not like I have something better to do at the moment. I don't really mind, Asuka," Shinji interjected lightly.

"Yes you _do_ mind. Shut up," Asuka interjected lightly.

Mariko paused in adjusting a small, important-looking knob to favor the German with an apologetic smile. "I want this to be _perfect_, you know?"

"You said yourself you're an amateur. Who cares if it's perfect?"

At last, the black-haired American stepped away from her prized possession as if admiring a work of art, and then quickly skipped over to where her roommates were patiently waiting. Asuka, for some reason known only to herself, stomped on Shinji's foot just before Mariko wedged herself between them.

The green-eyed teenager thumbed the small remote in her hand, and the camera emitted a high whine.

"Smile," said Mariko.

Next Chapter: First Exposure


	4. First Exposure

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is a Studio Gainax production, its characters created by Hideaki Anno. They say the word, and this story ceases to exist.

It is a sad commentary on the life of Asuka Langley Sohryu that Mariko Buick is not the worst thing to have ever happened to her...

In the Dark Room: First Exposure

By MidnightCereal

Doctor Ibuki did nothing to stem the steadily rising tide of mistrust Asuka was developing when she handed the girl Mariko Buick's permanent identification card. Not bothering to ask why she was the last of the three pilots to perform a synch test, or why the doctor hadn't just given Mariko the damned card when she was practically sitting in Maya's lap, Asuka instead wordlessly received the laminated rectangle and marched towards the lockers. Damned Shinji, making her promise to not chew the woman out.

Asuka then had the pleasure of taking the coldest shower of her entire life, coming away with the knowledge that Nerv now shut off the hot water after seven-thirty on a random day of the week in order to save an extra buck. Oh, the joys of downsizing.

Passing the rebuilt Nerv pyramid, on the tram up to Tokyo-3's top-tier residential district, and now stepping off the elevator on her home floor, the German looked down at the plastic I.D.; Mariko always smiled back, her dark eyebrows arched, green eyes squinting slightly but reflecting genuine hospitality behind an Asian face with faint Caucasian characteristics, and freckles, lighter than Hikari's. Mariko's long haphazard bangs were parted on her forehead, while the rest of her hair was messily engineered. Longer than Rei's? Yeah, but just by maybe an inch.

Mariko was pretty. Not dangerously drop-dead ravishing, but good-looking in her own right.

Instead of being greeted with the smell of food or even a bleepin' hello, the faint sound of running water welcomed her. This in itself did not surprise Asuka; Shinji occasionally waited to get home before taking a shower. Why wait so long to take one, though? The whole place probably wreaked of LCL now, thanks Count Dorkula. No sign of the new girl though, which was fine with Asuka, who was beginning to regret giving the American permission to ask her about her life:

"_Wait, you're an American citizen, too? I thought you said you're from Germany."_

"_I am from Germany. My dad was a Marine Corporal in Ramstein. All my schooling and most of my family was off-base. So I'm German."_

"_It's just weird. Being a citizen and all, and not even visiting the states."_

"_I never said I didn't. I spent two years and a few summers there when I was younger."_

"_Where?"_

"_Spotsylvania."_

"…_wait, where?"_

"_It's in Virginia."_

"_The furthest east I lived after I moved from California was Tennessee. I liked it there. The lady I was staying with was a coach with the basketball team in Knoxville, so I got to sit in on all the practices. I got some pictures if you want to see them."_

"_Ah, so you're a Lady Vol, huh?"_

"…_wait, a what?"_

"_Never mind."_

That particular conversation covered nationality, favorite and second favorite foods, the time you were sickest in your entire life, why Asuka allowed Shinji to wash her undergarments if she thought he was a pervert, and why Asuka thought Shinji was a pervert.

_That was a long conversation._

She flicked on the light in Mis-Mariko's room, greeted by a small cardboard cube squatting on the mattress, English scribbled on its sides. Why was her stuff still packed? It had been a week and the girl only had eight boxes. All of Misato's things had been taken by a distant cousin that lived in Osaka, years ago. Not giving it another thought, the Second Child walked over to and placed the card on a low desk next the western-style bed. Mission accomplished, she turned to the door to tackle her next assignment: Grub. She couldn't expect Shinji to make dinner everyni-

And then suddenly everything in her field of vision shifted left, and she tried to compensate by leaning right. Her foot caught something so she tugged, but it tugged back and she crashed unceremoniously to the floor. The box on the bed came with her, its contents spilling as it tumbled. Not knowing what happened at first, and then realizing, she tried not to cry.

It wasn't her fault. It wasn't her fault. Just a little brain damage. Could've been much, much worse. Nothing to cry about.

_Get up and fix this. Nothing's wrong with you._

So she went about the business of re-boxing Mariko's things, picking up a CD wallet and some VCD's. A pair of old Puma's, a deflated basketball, a sports bra with the words 'Rocky Top' across its front. _Great. Now I have to wash my hands._ Tattered, tan hiking boots and a jacket that said 'Lady Vols' in bright, big orange cursive across it's back. A large red photo album.

Asuka peered longest at the last item, and then put away everything else before she hefted it onto her lap and settled on the bed. She hesitated before opening it. Why? Why would Mariko care if she looked at her pictures? What photographer in their right mind would be angry that someone wanted to look at their pictures? So Asuka looked.

People. Individuals, couples, groups. Mariko was in half of them, cheesing as hard as them. One particular girl came up often –Hispanic with vibrant hazel eyes behind silver rims- and she and a younger Mariko flashed toothy grins. They had an arm around each other at a beach in bathing suits, in someone's bedroom in pajamas, a multitude of others. Then those pictures stopped.

Places. A vast rocky desert, the full spectrum visible on the far horizon. An elderly couple posing in front of a similar arid landscape. A towering skyline shimmering in the noonday sun, its luminescent nighttime counterpart with glowing fingers reaching for their dim distant brothers beyond the black void. It was Chicago, Asuka realized.

An arena from its rafters, the stands awash in a sea of orange. Mariko's green eyes peeking from underneath her black mop at the bottom of exposures with _really_ tall women. Green mountains and small vehicles snaking through them on black top. Japan.

Mariko the preteen laughing with another young girl with short brown hair in front of a Ramen soda machine at a rest stop. The couple again in shorts and tees on a tropical beach. Okinawa? Nirai-Kanai? The girls were now yukata-clad and kneeling before a small garden at a Ryokan. Finally, just Mariko, thirteen maybe, her arms and legs blurred by motion as she sprinted, her hair whirling about her as she looked back at something. Leaf over.

The pictures on the next page were considerably worse.

Asuka looked at the first picture as a whole. Then she squinted at the adult woman in it, sleeping. But something was off. Asuka studied her peaceful countenance, which was partially obscured by her haphazard hair. Finding nothing, she drew her eyes away from the face, to the woman's jaw line, and then past her ears, down to her neck.

Her neck. Twisting, twisting, folds in the skin from turning past the point of…

She wasn't asleep.

Before she let it fully hit her, Asuka tore her eyes away from the woman to the picture on its right. A man looked back and beyond her with a glassy leer, his lips pulled from his teeth in a mockery of a smile, oblivious to the gaping catastrophic tear in his ruined trachea…

_Look, look below him._ She shuddered.

A wire, long and rusty and barbed was coiled around another man's damaged neck. The flesh there was purple, as was his cracked lips, out from which lolled a pink tongue. The cold that had been steadily diffusing from Asuka's bare feet to her buttocks became real when it touched her lower spine and his wide eyes grotesquely bulged out at her from his bloated face.

He faired better than a woman below him, who had no eyes. Yet she wept dirty red tears from those empty, bloody sockets, smearing her cheeks with streaks of brown grime.

And then another woman, no, a teen maybe, and this was the worst so far, because she was completely and utterly unmarked. Nevertheless she drifted on her back in a deep red pool enveloping every corner of the exposure. Her eyes were closed, but Asuka knew that behind those silver rims were vibrant hazel irises. Leaf over.

The pictures on the next page were considerably worse.

"I don't particularly like those. They always remind me of what an amateur I am."

Her heart nearly exploding in her chest, Asuka stood and spun in one motion to stare wide-eyed at the door. Mariko stared back in a black sleeveless top and shorts, draping a towel over her bare shoulder. Regret was plain in her small sad smile as she raked a hand through her damp, slicked-back hair. "But you know that's not why I didn't want you to see them. Right?"

"I thought you already took a shower." She was cold. Cold all over. But she could think, could grasp at reasons, any reason other than the most obvious, why the Sixth Child, who so easily befriended everyone she met, the girl with the honest, innocuous smile, had portraits, more than a dozen, of grisly death masks.

Mortician's daughter?

"You took yours there? I don't know how you could stand it, Asuka. That water was ice cold."

"I can't stand how it smells. LCL. It's like blood. It gets everywhere. Where's Shinji?"

Webmaster for a sight for gruesome murders?

"Yeah. Blood does get everywhere."

"Maya gave me your permanent I.D. I put it on that table over there. Where is he?"

Freelance photographer? Who the hell would pay for those?

"Thanks, Asuka. I was getting tired of having to show that temporary badge with the picture on my permit. I look so stupid in that pic-"

"WHERE. THE _FUCK_. _IS HE_!"

"This is my fault. I should've been more careful. I shouldn't have left them out, even in the bottom of that box. We should all learn to be more careful. You know?"

Mariko brought her hands up as the Second Child flew at her, and then doubled over from the force of Asuka's blow to her stomach. The red head savagely kneed her on the point of Mariko's hip, causing the teen to spin off balance as Asuka blew by her.

Find Shinji. Make the bitch talk. She needed to make her ta-

A hand clamped onto her wrist just as she had passed her own room at the other end of the hall. Then, with colossal strength, it stole her momentum and reversed it, pulling her off her feet and into an elbow which crashed into her sternum with astonishing force. Asuka stumbled back as the hand let go, but refused to crumble, wheezing and blinking back tears as she forced herself to stand, and then charge.

Mariko wasn't smiling anymore.

Asuka swung viciously. Mariko blocked the hook with effortless speed. The veteran pilot, now in full warrior mode, was unswayed and folded her extended arm into an elbow aimed at the taller girl's temple. In a blink Mariko shifted her weight to force the strike downward as her other arm quickened Asuka's descent. The German reacted instinctively, her free arm clasping around the back of Mariko's knees as she let herself sink to the floor before exploding upwards, bodily lifting Mariko from her feet. Leaning forward and pulling the Sixth Child's legs inward, Asuka drove her into the floor with a feral scream.

The Second Child stood, towering over Mariko, glowering down at the girl even though her green eyes were screwed shut from the force of the impact. "You're going to tell me he's _alive_," Asuka growled venomously as she crouched over the girl she saw through a red haze. Her breath has heavy, shaking with exhaustion and adrenalin and a hatred she hadn't allowed herself to feel for a long time. Far too long. "or he's not the _only_ one that's dying today."

The eyes snapped open.

"He's alive."

Mariko's arm shot up and grabbed the collar of Asuka's blouse, pulling her into a savage head butt which connected with the red-head's cheekbone. The blow brought Asuka to her knees as the hand slid from her collar to her neck, and it stayed there as Mariko rose from beneath the kneeling teenager. It stayed as Asuka felt herself being lifted once more to her feet and stumbling backwards, and the fingers at the end of it hardened as she was driven against and nearly into an apartment wall. Her lungs became flattened bellows.

"Asuka…we need to talk." The voice was so kind, pleading, like a girlfriend finally finding the courage to speak out during an intervention. She was being half-dragged now as she struggled against Mariko's vice-like grip, oxygen beginning to return to her. "Do you promise to talk this out with me?"

"You promise to throw yourself into that damned crater if I agreee_eEEAHHH_!" Asuka flew backwards and clipped the back of the sofa as Mariko released her. She cart-wheeled like a rag doll over the furniture before crashing into the coffee table, which predictably gave way. Magazines scattered while a glass filled with vegetable juice spilled onto her, the sofa, and the carpet.

"Please, Asuka. Don't get up. Don't make me hurt you. _Please_…" She had not heard Mariko as she walked over, but there she was.

Asuka tried laughing, coughed instead. "Stop that. You sound pathetic. How am I going to get this shit out of my shirt?" She wiped some drink off of her bruised cheek before realizing it was too hot and viscous to be vegetable juice.

_Why?_ Why was she given gifts, actual honest-to-God gifts –a genius-level intellect, an aptitude to learn new things with astonishing ease, athleticism, blossoming effortless beauty- only to be presented at every turn, every corner in life, with things that were designed to strip her of dignity? Things that met her staggering humiliation with alien indifference…

"I don't want this to end badly. Please, Asuka, _listen_"

…or with kind, cloying, patronizing words?

"_I DON'T NEED YOUR PITY!_", and the glass flew from her hand with a velocity she did not know she was capable of generating. By the time it had shot through some dirty pots and pans and shattered against the back of the range, the other girl had ducked and fallen upon her, wrenching Asuka's arm at an unbearable angle.

A thin hard arm coiled around Sohryu's slender neck, the crook of the elbow pinching her windpipe. Even as a kaleidoscopic burst danced on her shut eyelids, the suffocating girl thrashed like a shark on the back of a clipper. Mariko just squeezed harder. They stayed like that for what seemed like hours to Asuka. Hours kicking, fighting for enough leverage to turn her head not even to breathe, just to bite her, _hurt_ her. But Mariko denied her and applied more pressure from a well of strength so deep it might as well have stretched into hell.

"Thank you. Thanks, Asuka."

_For **fucking** what?_ That was when Asuka realized that at some point she had stopped kicking and stopped resisting. She could breathe easier.

"I know that what I've done, it's not right. I'm not crazy. I destroyed all those people. I know one was too much. Wouldn't think that I cried for all of them, but I did. I-I know I'm sick. But…" A hiccupping laugh then emanated from Mariko. "…but if I'm sick, that implies I can get better, doesn't it? _Right_?" That laugh again. "I'm not crazy."

_Mariko Buick, congratulations. You have completely destroyed your credibility even as you attempted to build it up._

"You…" began Asuka, voice raspy. "…you actually believe that you're _not_ crazy?"

"Fine. Think what you want, whatever helps you sleep-"

"It will help me _sleep_ when the nice big orderlies pump you full of valium and haul your crazy ass away in a thick-ass straight jacket!"

"_NO!_" Mariko's forearm tensed against Asuka's neck. "No…you want me to be honest, Asuka? Upfront with you? I'm selfish. The most selfish person I know is talking right now. I want to live. _Really_ live. What kind of life is that, getting better while I'm locked away from the world? How many pictures could _you_ take of a padded cell? I can get better on my own. I can do it here, and though I didn't want you involved, you are. I'm sorry," The Second Child felt Mariko's chin brush her ear as she shook her head, "but not sorry enough to turn myself in."

Asuka lay still now, her breathing slowing as she became more confident by the moment she wasn't going to be brutally murdered. Tonight.

"You can help me if you want to," the taller young woman whispered. "Maybe you could…I've never met someone that graduated college at thirteen years old."

"Well, I've never met a homicidal lunatic that takes pictures of the people she's just gutted like a fish." Her cheek was burning now, throbbing. "And my degree was in applied math, not psychology…or _exorcism_."

"Fair enough. You don't have to help me," Mariko answered. "Don't do anything, then. _Either_ way. I like you. You and Shinji, I like you two a whole, _whole_ lot. You've been kind to me, even though you two had every reason in the world not to take me in, to ignore me. I don't forget kindness, ever. Truly good people, they don't forget kindness."

Silence from the subdued girl.

"Don't make me kill you."

And the whole pressure had suddenly lifted at once. As Asuka calmly rose, she stared at Mariko Buick and saw the young woman in an entirely new and sinister light.

"I'll go get something for your cheek," said the thing that was Mariko Buick. She began to turn as her wholesome grin returned tentatively at first, and then leapt to full force. "Asuka, where'd you learn to fight? No one's ever been able to get under me like that before."

"I'm home! Sorry I didn't cook dinner, but picked up some rice noodles down near the par-oh what the hell happened…_here_…"

They looked at Shinji, who was assessing the damage from the typhoon that had apparently hit their apartment exclusively. Now he was looking back at them, mouth still agape, the plastic bags sliding from his slack fingers. Asuka wondered what they must have looked like to the boy. Both were panting heavily, clothes in disarray, Mariko's damp bangs obscuring her wavering, panicked green eyes…

_This is it_, she knew. _He's going to ask the wrong questions and get noble, and then she's gonna bleed us like stuck pigs_.

Asuka gave a start when Mariko suddenly began speaking.

"Miss Asai's dog got in here and…_phew_! You wouldn't think Checkers could move like that, but something got into _that_ animal."

_Quick thinking…you psychopathic butcher_. As Mariko turned to point at Asuka the American sucked in air, and much to Asuka's dismay, she could not tell whether it was from exhaustion or panic. "We tried to get her out of here but she just kept running and she had whirled on Asuka and she ended up slipping and she hit her cheek as she fell on the table…"

_You're rambling. You're babbling. You're sinking…_

Shinji looked skeptical. "Checkers…did all this?" He left the bags and stepped forward into the living room.

"Yeah!" Mariko responded too quickly and with _way_ too much enthusiasm. "Yeah…something spooked her…and I-I wouldn't come in here just yet, there's broken glass in some places, and-"

"_Little_ Checkers…did all _this_?" He leaned so he could see into the kitchen. He was frowning now.

_Just please let this go…_

Mariko just threw her hand up and gave a small hiccupping laugh. "_Hey_, I was surprised, too! S-Sometimes, you just never know how an animal's gonna react, you _know_?"

"I remember once," Shinji began, "when I was walking past Miss Asai's door when she was coming out to walk Checkers, I startled that little thing and it just started yelping and choking itself on its own leash, it was pathe-"

"_THE BITCH WAS IN__ HEAT! OKAY?_" Asuka finally roared as Mariko involuntarily took a few steps back. Debate over. For a moment, the girls stood in the middle of the room while Shinji stayed frozen at the threshold.

"I'll get the broom," he said, putting on some slippers. "Mariko, can you help her with her cheek?"

"Sure." Mariko stepped to just behind Asuka and tapped her shoulder. Asuka's skin crawled, but she knew better than to flinch. Following Mariko into the bathroom, the sound of clinking glass shards dimmed with the closing of the shoji.

"Where's the hydrogen peroxide, Asuka?"

"There's some rubbing alcohol up there somewhere. Hydrogen peroxide's for pussies."

Mariko made a noise as she found the bottle of disinfectant. "I'd expect you to say something like that, you know?" Her movements were swift as she dabbed a cotton swab with the liquid.

The Second Child saw her reflection shrug as she stared at the mirror, letting her wounded cheek bleed itself into coagulation. What's another scar? "It seems we both know more about the other than we ever wanted them to know. If that makes sense."

Mariko's movements slowed. "It does." She approached Asuka with the swab. "I hope we can be friends still."

The alcohol stung.

End of First Exposure

A/N: Uh huh. The tagline makes just a _little_ more sense now, doesn't it? If you got this far I thank you, whole heartedly. And yes, I know this chapter was short. I know. _I know_. It's the shortest of all thirteen chapters, actually, but that's only because the scenes in _First Exposure_ were the oldest, most developed ideas I had for the entire story; I knew exactly what I wanted to do. Well, that's a lie, but by the time I actually wrote it, chapter four was fat free.

Acknowledgement: Mariko's (first) name is my salute to a character in my favorite fanfiction of all time, (the now defunct) Transpacific's _Ill Met By Starlight_, another darkfic, written by Mike Loader and Susan Doenime. Trust me, it makes a weird cosmic sense that Mariko seems to be pretty strong… anyway, a Google search on the story's title should bring it up, and by extension the link to their old website; many of the stories they and other excellent writers have posted should still be accessible. Nearly all of them, including IMBS, are Ranma ½ fanfiction. They are all exceptional. Without exception.

Mariko's last name? Guess.

Thank you for your reading and your criticism. Ja.

Next Chapter: Second Exposure


	5. Second Exposure

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is a Studio Gainax production, its characters created by Hideaki Anno. They say the word, and this story ceases to exist.

It is a sad commentary on the life of Asuka Langley Sohryu that Mariko Buick is not the worst thing to have ever happened to her…

In the Dark Room: Second Exposure

By MidnightCereal

Jackelyn Hernandez ran faster than she ever had in her entire life. It was funny, how being wounded and chased by a relentless predator allowed one to do extraordinary things.

No it wasn't.

She squeezed her sticky bleeding midsection even tighter as she breathed and squinted in the weak, reluctant moonlight. She could barely make out the pounding of her feet on the rocky desert bed over the sound of her heart, pumping life through her burning legs and out of her leaking abdomen.

She was running out of time, and she could no longer tell if the cold she felt was from her dark and empty surroundings or her life force, slowly ebbing down her legs, trickling through her shivering forearms, and soaking her grey sweat shirt and old khaki shorts.

The ground below her pounded back. Jackelyn allowed herself a degree of hope, felt her dry shivering lips pull upward into a grim smirk. She had made it to the road. It saw scarce traffic save for the regulars that chose to live all the way out here, but someone could come by, it was possible. At the very least, she wasn't going to die out _here_.

A light, yellow, impotent and stationary, caught her blurring peripheral vision. The Grey Coyote. A restaurant. Bandages, for careless busboys and cooks. Water. A pay phone. Knives. Her breath came shuddering, but much easier now. She loped the two hundred yards to the silver trailer, using the distance to think of a way in.

Jackelyn mentally tallied off the survival guides she had read through to stave off boredom, her six years of girl-scout training, and about thirty episodes of _MacGyver_ Uncle Willie made her watch whenever she visited him in Tucson. She whittled down her choices and, coming to a decision, picked up the largest rock she could find and hefted it through the glass pane in the front door.

_I'm sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Douglass. I'm sure you'll understand._

She reached through, ignoring the thin red lines being etched into her forearm by the remaining jagged shards. One lock found her groping hand easily, while the lower one required her to get on her toes and stretch torn muscles. She bit back a sharp cry as she fumbled with and then flipped it, nearly losing her balance as she stumbled into blackness.

Jackelyn doubted that she could've been able to make out anything specific even with her glasses. Nothing would be solved unless she had some extra light. Using the black silhouette of the main counter as her tactile guide she worked her way along it. As one arm remained pressed to her stomach, the other was stretched out to the counter surface, her slick fingers searching for a break in its smooth lines, some crease.

Then she stopped. Her stomach dropped as her ears picked up something. She did, didn't she? She could've imagined hearing it, but it was impossible to discern anything –not her boots scuffing the hollow floor, her wet fingers squeaking across the counter top- above the percussive din drumming beneath her sweater. But she could feel, and…it was getting colder. _God_, she had to hurry. She wasn't going to _die_ out here. She wanted to _go home_…

There it was. Her fingers followed the crevice down to a cool hinge, and without delay she lifted the small door and made her way to the back of the counter.

When she had felt like making a quick buck, which was often, Jackelyn bused tables for the Grey Coyote. More specifically, she bused tables for Mr. Douglass _at_ the Grey Coyote. Most specifically, she bused tables for Mr. Douglass at the Grey Coyote when he did not sit her down at an empty booth warmed with orange rays from the desert sun, and tell her one of his stories.

Mr. Douglass would begin speaking, and Jackelyn would instantly fall into his old, grey laughing eyes. His silver eyebrows jumped when he got excited, and he would stroke the stubble on his grizzled chin and study the coffee mug before him whenever he remembered friends long gone. He would pause, look up, and find her staring. He never found it odd a sixteen year-old girl would look at him like that; he always just grinned or chuckled. God, she loved his stories…she wanted to hear more of them, _all_ of them.

At the end of the day, before offering Jackelyn a ride back to her house, Mr. Douglass would always turn off the lights from the far end of the trailer.

Flip.

She adjusted to the new field of vision presented to her. A year 2016 calendar just to her left accurately crossed off up to the sixteenth of November. The red and green padded booths waiting patiently for the new day's travelers in search of a quick bite. The windows all around the trailer, painted an ebony that bled into a navy blue hazy with pale natural light.

The person standing at the door, next to the phone, looking at her.

"Sorry I'm late, Jackie." The figure raised and lightly shook something black in her right hand. "I couldn't finish without this, you know?" Her brown hiking boots, her dark blue jeans, brown jacket and cropped black hair began to come into focus as she started towards the counter. Towards Jackelyn.

_No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. Please. Pl-_

"-ease." Her arms wrapped around her bloody stomach. Tighter. Tighter.

The best friend she ever had stopped looking at her long enough to duck under the counter, and rise on the other side. When their eyes met once more, the green-eyed teenager closed the distance.

"Why?" The question lingered on Jackelyn's quivering lip before it left, and then again. "Why? _Why?_"

"I should be asking you that, I think," was the answer, its owner standing before the Hispanic girl sinking to her knees, whimpering in fear and pain. "_Why_, Jackie? Why didn't you just _listen_ to me? Didn't I tell you to be careful around me? With what you asked? With what we talked about? How many times did I ask-"

"_How was I supposed to know?_ How was I going to know? How? _How_…"

The only thing the injured girl could think of at the moment was making some sense of this –her _last_ moments, cowering in a shivering heap like a wounded doe in the middle of Bumblefuck, California- but her inquiries were staunched by broken choking sobs. In the next second arms enveloped her. Hands, strong and soothing, moved up and down her shaking back, warm. She was so cold now.

"Shhh…shhh…don't worry Jackie, don't worry. I'm your friend. I'm good at this. I know how to do this so that it won't hurt…."

_One more thing, one more, just ask it…_

Jackelyn Hernandez asked about that thing.

"Probably cry. Just like I will when this is all over," the girl in blue jeans answered clearly. She was holding something else. "Here." Gloved hands came around as if crowning Jackelyn, and when they came away the Hispanic girl could see everything perfectly; her ruined sweat shirt and shorts, the restaurant, the other girl's green misting eyes, and another object she was now holding.

"Don't move," Mariko said.

Despite the advice, Jackelyn moved a lot.

Outside of the Grey Coyote, a truck sped past.

* * *

Over the course of its relatively short existence, Nerv had been a virtual Mecca for truly mentally ill human beings.

For starters, its late Chief Operations Planning Manager and the designated Second and Third Child, had for a year formed the most dysfunctional family in the history of surrogacy. Fittingly, the guardian of the two children had been the sole survivor of the most catastrophic event in the history of mankind.

From the day she emerged from the emergency capsule floating where Antarctica had been previously, she bore both deep physical and psychological scars. She had compensated poorly in the ensuing years, remaining completely mute for the first two, then completely inverting into a motor-mouthed borderline alcoholic with overly promiscuous tendencies.

Her boy-shy best friend, a scientist, had fallen helplessly in love with the Third Child's father –a cold and calculating man- who may or may not have played a role in her mother's death. Despite staying cool under constant and extreme pressure during most of her stint as the Project E. Chairperson, the good blonde doctor had suffered a staggering emotional breakdown at the end, and had not been seen since Third Impact.

The Third Child had faired better if just for the fact that he was still alive. Emotionally, mentally and sexually repressed, the teenaged boy had stumbled through the 2015 conflict like a drunk through a minefield. All along he had unwillingly remained on the front lines, incredulously for the praise of his father –a cold and calculating man- who may or may not have played a role in his mother's death.

Each ensuing battle tore at the young man piecewise, until the progress he had made in overcoming his severe introversion had dissolved entirely with the death of the seventeenth Angel. And that was only the beginning of his problems, one of which was undoubtedly the Second Child, whom embodied so much of what the young man feared and desired.

And she knew it. And she let him know that she knew during every mission and every walk to school, every time he washed her clothes and when she took a shower. She was very good at trying hard. She tried hard in school and graduated college barely into her teens. She tried hard at martial arts and received her black belt in Hapkido within a year of stepping to Sensei Diedrich's front door. German, Japanese, English, French, and Italian flowed off her tongue like water. Her monstrous avatar had leapt hundreds of meters into the air and executed the most acrobatic maneuvers with the barest flicker of a thought.

She tried so hard because she knew, in her heart of hearts, that she was already a failure.

She was reminded of that fact every time she turned to hatefully glare and the First Child –a cold and calculating girl- who was so despised by the German she might as well have played a role in her mother's death. The First Child didn't try, but she had been a better swimmer. The First Child did not try to befriend the Third Child, though she had better success at it.

Suddenly, the Second Child came to realize that the only person more emotionally, mentally, and sexually repressed than the Third Child, was her. Suddenly, resounding, crushing defeat became a birthright, embraced her as a mother would her only child, and left her sitting naked and emaciated in some rusty tub among rubble. Nerv security had found her that way after the sixteenth Angel, her vacant blue eyes fixed above her on something. She couldn't even die right.

There was her. Then there was the new Project E. Chairperson, slowly losing _her_ mind, though no one saw what was so obvious to the Second Child. There were other stories, a dozen at least that Asuka Langley Sohryu could recall. All were tragic personal tales of loss, betrayal, madness, malevolence, and/or masochism.

And yet, somehow, improbably, against all conceivable and reasonable odds, Mariko Ashley Buick was crazier than all of them by ten country miles. It wasn't even close. 'I hope we can be friends still'? What planet was she living on? Oh, yeah, evidently the planet where you routinely axe-murdered innocent people completely at random.

Was it really at random? There were countless people in that photo album, and not all of them ended up bloody corpses, did they? What did they do (or _not_ do) that saved them from the same fate? Whatever that thing was, Asuka had to find out; that, or get the other girl in the hands of the authorities, which Asuka knew would be harder than just walking into or calling the nearest police department.

You simply did not destroy that many lives without being smart enough to know how to get away with it. She wasn't about to count on Mariko getting sloppy, either. It would be even harder if she wanted to keep the others around her alive as well.

'Don't make me kill you'. That was you, _plural_. Mariko liked her. Mariko liked Shinji, too. She didn't want to kill either of them. But, if Asuka made a play to get rid of Mariko without knowing for certain where she or Shinji was (or more to the point, without knowing where Mariko was in relation to Shinji) there was a chance that the girl could slay them both.

Asuka could also see Nerv security storming their apartment and rummaging through Mariko's boxes in search for a large red photo album filled with gruesome imagery…and coming away with nothing. Oh, they would pool their resources, make connections, and possibly discover the truth about Mariko Buick, in which case the Sixth Child would disappear.

Yeah, that's _exactly_ what Asuka wanted, a known killer on the loose, a seemingly normal teenaged girl that knew her phone number, address, place of education _and_ work. A killer that would really smile and giggle, really offer hugs and friendly advice, right up to the moment she really poked your eyes out with the first ball point pen she could get her hands on. Biding time, lurking, patiently waiting for the right moment…

To think that Asuka had welcomed the downsizing of Section Two. The simple fact was there was no real reason for twenty-four hour surveillance of the Eva pilots until about three days ago. That reason announced she had to go to the bathroom.

"I'll show you where it is," said Shinji, getting up from the opposite side of the table. Mariko nodded and stood from Asuka's side, hard triceps tensing underneath a snug sleeve as she pushed away from the edge. The red head watched the two glide past two waiters and a group of noisy restaurateurs as her hands moved of their own accord.

"You don't like your steak, Asuka?" Maya asked across the table.

"It's fine." It _was_ fine. It was _great_, actually, but there were things at the moment that took precedent over her enjoyment of her medium well-done (and expensive) slab of meat. "Maya, I need to talk to you."

The doctor wore a blank face before she smiled. "Of course. What did you want to talk about? I'm sure that I could-"

"Not now," Asuka softly interjected. "This is gonna be a long conversation. Just the two of us."

"Does it have anything to do with that bruise on your cheek?" Doctor Ibuki asked as she absently poked at her own meal. "Or more to the point, the person that put it there?"

Maya's sigh came immediately after the girl broke eye contact and then jerked her shoulders nonchalantly. It was a sound the Second Child took exception to.

"You're not going to lecture me about my apartment etiquette, _are_ you?" Asuka suddenly asked. "Because Mariko's the one with the problem."

"Oh…maybe I'll talk to her then-"

"No," Asuka answered almost too quickly, "I want you to talk to _me_ first. We've worked together for, what, three years now? I think I've earned your ear over some total stranger."

"I agree. You're right."

"I want to trust you, really."

At this, the young doctor eyed the German teen, failing to hide the hurt in her large brown eyes. "You…don't trust me?"

"It doesn't have anything to do with you as a person."

"But, you don't trust me…true or not true?" Maya asked, slowly shaking a head of short dark brown hair.

"I…you changed Maya. I think you have, to be honest. I don't know what it was that made you different." Asuka's voice dropped to a self-conscious whisper as she leaned forward. "I guess I just ignored it until now."

Maya leaned back, and her shut eyes reflected understanding. "I've been out of it…yeah." She let out a breath before she whispered. "When did it start? I don't know exactly." Then she added, "Maybe…after I heard you scream."

It did not do good things for Asuka's full stomach when Maya Ibuki gave a soft chuckle as the young pilot drew back in surprise. "I guess I shouldn't have told you that, huh, Asuka?"

"We share a really fucked-up bond, you know that?" Asuka pointed out.

"Asuka…" Maya softly chided.

"Well…it's true." Slowly, the numbness Asuka felt drained and her expression became solemn. "When I lost…the last thing I remember was _your_ voice."

"Maybe," Maya began, "we could help each other if we _did_ speak. I know it would help me."

"Free therapy is a rare and wonderful thing, I know…unfortunately. I owe you one, anyway." And with that Asuka winked at the woman with her left eye.

Maya beamed.

* * *

_It's three in the morning_, thought Asuka, _and I'm still awake_.

She rolled away from her clock radio and tried to take a deep, relaxing breath. Deep, yes. Relaxing, no. Having an insane murderer rooming about twenty feet down the hall tends to do that. It was just the unpredictability of it all.

She could imagine tonight's dinner with Maya going differently; they would all be talking about something inane as they ate. Asuka would mention something and Shinji would ask a stupid question. She would reply in kind, and it would be funny, if a bit mean. Shinji would look embarrassed and Maya would pretend to be embarrassed for him as she laughed behind her hand. Mariko would pause from eating her Martina de Siciliana to laugh openly. Then, still laughing, she would pick up Asuka's steak knife and punch a neat hole in her temple.

Asuka breathed again. Deep, yes. Relaxing, no. She closed her eyes.

They all seemed to have problems, everyone that lived in this city. Traumatic childhood episodes seemed to be a prerequisite for Eva pilots. But she was not some…cold-blooded monster like Mariko. Neither was Shinji or Touji. Rei _was_ a cold-blooded monster, though of a different kind, as far as the Second Child was concerned. In any case, Rei was definitely not Mariko.

What did it take? What broke Mariko? How much worse could her experiences have been than Asuka's? What could _possibly_ trump watching your mother watch _you_ as she dangled by her brok-

_ENOUGH_.

Just a few nights more. Then she would sit with Maya and explain in detail what she saw in that horrible red book. Then they would decide carefully, precisely, how to dispense of the most insane person either of them would probably ever know. Well planned, clean, perfectly executed. She's alive, Shinji's alive, and Mariko gets the help she somehow thinks Asuka could provide and that the girl so desperately needed.

_She doesn't want to kill us. There's time to do this right._

She opened her eyes. Someone was sitting on her bed.

She shot up into a sitting position, frantically reaching for the exacto knife resting underneath her pillow.

"I thought I was just imagining it, but you _have_ been jumpy the last few days. No wonder you're so alert this late. I'm sorry I startled you, though."

Shinji. Not Mariko. Not tonight. How'd he get in her room without her hearing? But the million-dollar question, of course, was…

"What the…_hell_ are you doing in here?"

Something new and foreign touched his voice as he answered her. "Whatever you want me to do."

Asuka then knew what tinged it, and the fear that had given way to befuddlement returned in force, though different in form.

"What do you mean?" she asked, consciously maintaining a steady tone. She knew what the young man had meant, and was validated as his dark form crept past her feet to her knees, and then moved to plant his hands at her sides. She could not keep from shivering when his fingers brushed her skin beneath her top.

"I mean…I'm tired of running away. There's only one place I need to be right now." His whisper was like velvet, his hot breath tickling her burning ear. "I want you to take me there."

She breathed in his scent. He smelled like many things, and at the moment it didn't matter that one of those things was blood. Nothing else really mattered when Shinji swung his leg over and straddled her. She wasn't going to sleep anytime soon.

"What…what if Mariko hears?" she asked as she lay back down and let his weight press against her pelvis and bore into her. Hovering above her in the dark, he chuckled.

"If she does, it's going to be _very_ uncomfortable tomorrow at breakfast."

She bit her lip and summoned the necessary courage. "Shinji, just be…I think…I want you to know you're…_erste_."

His hands gripped her thin wrists. "Then this might hurt a bit." His grip tightened as he plunged down with his mouth…

…and tore a chunk of flesh from her shoulder.

For some reason she felt no pain, but she screamed all the same, a wretched sound sired from disbelief and terrible confusion, fear and betrayal. She writhed beneath as teeth gnashed at her, ripping sinew, somehow crushing bone. A blind awesome panic kept her from reconciling what she had been hearing and feeling from Shinji seconds ago and the thing on top of her now. It could not speak but squealed and growled as it took pleasure in the carnage it so eagerly inflicted.

Her shrieks rose in volume and desperation, and it responded by moving down to her stomach. All Asuka knew was that here he was again, betraying her, killing her, this time not just through inaction. She glimpsed a ribbon of blue light hanging above him, and before he dove down to devour her heaving abdomen he rose slightly…

**A gaping and slavering maw lined with teeth gleaming like bloody pearls and bisecting a giant sightless white head… **

_Nonononono shut it out, don't look, close them, shut your eyes. Shut Your Eyes. SHUT YOUR EYES._

She did so as the lights in her room jumped to life. The body that had been atop her, the thing killing her, eating her, was gone. Somebody was speaking real words to her now, not just garbled savage moans. Shinji. The real one. A hand touched her, tried to at least as she flailed her arms outward wildly. Her shoulder was whole again. Her eyes were still shut.

She was still screaming.

The hand tried again as she wrenched away, opening her eyes just long enough the view an empty far corner. She shot from her sweat-soaked sheets and crushed her back against it. She was aware enough to know she was awake. Alive. She knew that soon she would stop struggling, stop screaming and pushing his arms off her shoulders, but his voice seemed so far away at the moment…

"C'mon Asuka. C'mon, relax. Asuka, _breathe_." After a full minute, with considerable effort, she did take a breath. Deep, yes. Relaxing, no.

"Good. C'mon, again, good. _Gooooood_. Breathe. It's okay."

He was right. It was over. It was okay, she had dreamt it all, both the first and second act. Her tired muscles began to soften. His hands clasped her shoulders firmly, comfortably.

"Good, Asuka. It's okay. We're here."

_We?_

Her question was answered when she finally opened her eyes; the painful glare subsided, and green eyes filled with concern stared back. Shinji looked on from the doorway.

"What _happened?_" Mariko asked. "I thought you were dying in…huh?"

"I said get out."

Mariko's hands shrank back as she gently stammered. "I-I was just worried. You just kept screaming and screaming, we didn't know what was going on-"

"GET OUT! _GET OUT!_"

Shock registered on Mariko's face at the explosive hostility of the other girl's words. Sparing Asuka a crestfallen expression, she turned and shuffled to the doorway, lightly brushing past Shinji. Favoring Mariko with a sympathetic look, he approached Asuka, who was looking down at her feet.

"She was just worried about you," he said quietly.

"I'll make it up to her later." Much later. Like never. She waded back to her bed on rubbery legs.

"Bad food?" he softly asked. Though Asuka could not see him as she sat and leaned forward with her head in her palms, she felt the mattress sink with his added weight.

"Yeah."

"What was it?" The bed sank further around her thighs and she could feel his body heat. "Was it the one with Misato? And your eye?"

She shook her head. "No." He was so warm.

"Because I thought you stopped having that nightmare."

"No I haven't. But it doesn't bother me like that anymore." She groaned and pulled herself up and crashed backwards like a scuba diver. Pulling her wrists over her eyes, she said, "This was a different one…and I'll get over this, too."

"Asuka…" he breathed apprehensively, "Doctor Ueto wanted to know if this type of thing happened…"

"I know, Shinji."

"That if you started having other nightmares, you should see her-"

"I _know_. Now stop talking. I don't need her. All I need is to go to sleep."

A second passed, another, and then the bed then rebounded as his weight ascended and he approached her door. "Goodnight. If you change your mind about seeing her, or just _talking_ to me, just…can you do that, for me? Let me help you. _Please_." She did not answer for an odd moment, long enough for the young man to turn to the hallway.

"_Now_ you want to help me," she scoffed as she lay blind and prostrate. "How much help do you think you need to offer, Shinji? You make it sound like you have a time machine or something. What are you gonna do to help me change that day, to make me all better?"

"Whatever you want me to do."

Her breath audibly hitched. _Dammit, dammit, dammit!_ He was seconds away from leaving, and now he was there watching her. Why did she say something?

"I can't _believe_ you just said…" she began, her voice already crippled by a growing despair. "Why can't you _ever_ say the right thing?" For about ten seconds a terrible pain choked off the sounds mingling in the back of her throat. And then it came out and shook her with a child's sobs and a strange misshaped laughter, muffled by one hand as another clasped her wet eyes. "You never, _never_ say the right thing," the sorrowing girl softly stated to Shinji, who to her knowledge had remained stapled to the floor at the entrance of her room.

"Maybe…you can start by doing what I want you to do, like you said. How much better do you think I'd feel if you got the hell out of my room, huh?"

Asuka did not feel better when she heard the door shut, and felt herself alone once more. _Can't DO the right thing either, can you, Shinji?_ Wiping shed tears from her hot cheeks she craned her neck to peer upside down at her clock radio, and try as she might, she couldn't get the numbers to go backwards.

End of Second Exposure

A/N: Ummm….yeah. Thank you for reading and your criticism. Ja.

Random A/N: I'm probably driving you people crazy with these rapid-fire updates, but I just keep finding these little piss-pot typos…you know what it's like? It's like waxing down your car until it was absolutely spit-shine spot free, and having a pigeon just dump on your hood out of spite. I hat typos.

Next Chapter: Shiritori


	6. Shiritori

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is a Studio Gainax production, its characters created by Hideaki Anno. They say the word, and this story ceases to exist.

It is a sad commentary on the life of Asuka Langley Sohryu that Mariko Buick is not the worst thing to have ever happened to her…

In the Dark Room: Shiritori

By MidnightCereal

"Come forward a bit, I can't see you…yeah, that's pretty sweaty." Shinji stood up from the sofa, removed his SDAT ear plugs, and appraised his soaked, exhausted new roommate from his vantage point in their living room. "What were you doing?"

"Basketball," Mariko answered simply. She stepped forward into the living space, using the bottom of her shirt to quickly wipe copious sweat from her brow. "I was taking some snapshots of the cherry trees at the park, and some boys needed one more person for a game. So I was like, 'I play some ball,' and they went, 'you're any good?'"

"Are you?"

"Let's put it this way. Our team got on about ten-thirty this morning. We got off at about one-thirty, and that's only because I left." Mariko walked under one of the air conditioner vents and let it run over her wet hair. "I'm not saying they sucked or anything, but I got tired of breaking their ankles."

She exhaled exaggeratedly. "There was this one guy who was really good, though. I actually had to _try_ to score on him." She looked at the Third Child with a shade of embarrassment coloring her cheeks. "I don't sound _too_ arrogant, do I?"

Shinji Ikari, paragon of positive spin, snorted derisively. "Until I met Asuka I didn't know arrogance was a skill. You're fine."

The sweaty teenager laughed softly, and then sobered. "So…she hasn't gotten up yet? It's already ten past two, you know."

Shinji looked slightly uncomfortable as he hesitated to answer. "Well, she was up pretty late, and she had some trouble getting to sleep. Besides, if she was awake, we'd know by now…there's no way I should've gotten away with what I just said."

Mariko spared a glance at the red head's door and moved away from the vent toward Shinji. "Um…" she gently started, "last night was…she's like that often?"

The boy smiled reassuringly and slowly shook his head. "She didn't yell at you to spite you. You just have to understand…that she's had it _rough_. She had it worse as a little kid than any of the other pilots as far as I know."

The Sixth Child's black eyebrows arched like bows. "Really?"

"Don't take it personal, okay? How she was last night. Please?"

"I know better than to do that," she assured him, pulling a damp short sleeve up and over her shoulder as her eyes turned downward. "That probably freaked her out, I mean me trying to shake her out of it, you know? She barely even knows me. If anyone should've been trying to do it, it should've been you. I mean, God, she _loves_ you."

He responded with a sound that may have been another laugh, but it withered somewhere between his throat and lips. "I doesn't matter what she _really_ feels…"

"Whoa. That was…_dark_, man. What did you mean by _that_?" she nearly whispered, and by necessity had closed much of the space between them as they stood in the middle of the sun-drenched living room. Outside, beyond the patio, the rare cloud hung in the spartan blue above Tokyo-3.

When Mariko's head tilted at an inquisitive angle he looked to a far wall and found something terribly interesting to study. "What I _mean_? Nothing. I don't want to bring you into this."

"Don't take this the wrong way, but I think you do. Or you wouldn't have said that just now. Shinji, if you're looking for help, you found it. I _want_ to help."

"I know. I may not be that good at reading people, but I got that sense from you, at least." His gaze had finally crawled back to her verdant eyes. "I'll tell you later, alright? I promise."

"You don't have to promise a thing, 'cause I'm not going to let you forget. Everyone here is nice, but they're so on edge. God, we go into Nerv today. It's _Sunday_. What time do we have to be there again?"

"Five-thirty. But I'm telling Maya that Asuka's not feeling well."

She scanned him up and down. "You're already dressed, though."

"Oh, yeah." He looked down at himself and shrugged. "On Sundays I usually go to Ueno and walk a bit. Then I'm visiting someone." Shinji sat down heavily and put the headphones back into his ears.

"Just someone, or Misato?" she quickly asked before he could press 'play'.

"Misato. Right." He closed his eyes.

"Can I see her with you?"

He opened his eyes.

"Just let me wash up. It won't take long. You weren't leaving right this moment, were you?" Shinji wasn't answering. "I…are you mad I asked to go with you to see her?"

When he looked up at her, his gratitude was painfully transparent. "That," he said, "is about as far from the truth as you could possibly get."

* * *

Asuka was about as far from awake as a healthy person could possibly get. The phone cheerfully warbling next to her bed failed to pique her consciousness the first time it rang. Or the second. Or the third.

By the fourth ring an arm lazily emerged from the tangled mass of covers and hair like an elephant's trunk; to search for the source of the disturbance or a hammer with which to mercilessly smash into oblivion, she honestly did not know. By the fifth ring, phone in hand, she was thinking, _this had better be good_.

"Uh…well, only if you like slasher flicks. Is this Asuka? This _is_ Asuka, isn't it?" The voice over the phone held a tenuous grasp on its joviality.

"I didn't mean to say that," Asuka rustily explained as she awkwardly shrugged to herself. "I don't mean to be doing anything right now, Yukie."

The class representative gave a delighted gasp. "Hey! You recognized my voice!"

"You've only told me to rise, bow and sit half a dozen times a week for the last two years. Give me _some_ credit." Yukie sounded as if she was moving as she spoke to Asuka. The Second Child propped herself up with an elbow as she looked at her clock and baulked at the time and the chalky taste in her mouth. Then she sighed.

"Yukie, look...I have to be at Nerv in about –_damn_- fifty minutes. What were you seeing?"

"Black Forest Two." Yukie sounded wholly disappointed.

"Hey, it's not like I want to go into Nerv on a Sunday. I'd go with you otherwise." No she wouldn't, because if she wasn't careful, Asuka would be living a horror movie faster than she could say Audition, and right now she didn't want to be reminded of it.

"_Alright_ then," Yukie sighed. "We might do something afterwards, so if you change your mind…can I just give you my cell number?"

Thirty minutes later, Asuka Langley Sohryu, now clothed and fully (but not happily) awake, read the letter on the kitchen table. Her face had no audience, so she kept it blank as she reread the carefully scrawled kanji. She chewed on the piece of jellied and buttered toast, and thought for a minute, but had to crush a sudden panic that swept through her. Asuka thought for another minute. Then she wiped her hand, and plucking her cell phone from her pocket, hit the speed dial.

"Hello?" Shinji answered.

"You _idiot_. Why didn't you tell me _earlier_ I was getting the day off?"

"I-"

Click. There. Shinji was alive. And she had apologized. Feeling worlds better, she skipped to her room to retrieve Yukie's phone number.

* * *

"-didn't want to wake you…" Shinji stopped talking when he realized he was speaking to a dial tone. Not breaking stride to Misato's grave marker he replaced the phone in his pocket.

"Asuka?" Mariko inquired.

"Uh huh."

"That didn't sound like it went well." They passed a man with glasses stalking sullenly toward the front gate of 3-I Memorial Cemetery. Shinji did not return the look the man gave him.

"It went fine. She was just saying everything was okay."

"Is it?"

"For now it is, and that's good enough," Shinji assured her as they strolled, looking beyond the memorial grounds and upwards. A tram car shone in the reflected sunlight in the far distance. It glided downward in a slow descent into the crater, and then hid itself behind a bevy of gigantic commercial towers rooted in the floor of the old Geofront. They similarly shone in the abundant daylight.

A click and a whirring sound brought him back to the plot of quiet land in which he was standing, and to the girl that had just taken his picture.

"I…" She stopped as he gazed passively at her. "When you looked up, I believe I saw the real you," she began to explain as she lowered her prized possession and walked back to his side. "I know, I know…that's corny. But just for a _second_, I could see inside you…and I _live_ to capture moments like that."

Mariko's narrowed lids and black lashes hid her green irises when she studied her most recent exposure. She closed the distance and showed the Third Child the freeze frame. "See, Shinji? _That_ is a serious man there. He looks like he has…a lot to answer for."

"You can tell all that by the picture you just took?"

She quickly pulled the camera back to her and stepped away. "Nope," she said. "I don't know," she said. "Maybe."

"It wouldn't surprise me if you could," admitted the young man, silently counting the lines of grave markers on the way to Misato's.

"Why?" she asked.

"Is there anyone you haven't made friends with since you got here?"

"Asuka."

"Anyone reasonable?"

She playfully shoved him and chided, "You shouldn't say things like that! _You're_ supposed to be the understanding one!"

"The only thing I understand about her is that she'll never let me understand her. Ever."

She visibly sobered as their eyes met and he said, "You know what the sad thing is? I think I understand you better than her. Since you've got here, all you've done is try to open people's hearts, to get to know them. I don't know why you do what you do, but the act, I understand that. I knew a boy who did that even easier than you did. So I understand."

It was the Sixth Child's turn to look beyond the present landscape, to the steel spires in the heart of Tokyo-3's bottom-tier commercial sector.

"Open people up, huh?" He saw the back of her head as she slowly shook it. "That's not always a good thing, Shinji. That's why Asuka, her attitude, didn't surprise me all that much. It doesn't matter how…_good_ you are at it. Usually when you try to look at someone's heart, they offer some kind of resistance. But the good thing is, if you keep at it, they stop struggling sooner or later."

"Do you honestly believe that?" he asked after a pregnant second.

"I'm not saying it's easy, and I'm not thumping my chest or anything. It takes a little strength, you know? People fight you so hard, sometimes."

"Why do you do it, then? I mean, if they fight it, I don't think it does much good to force them."

"I know that I should probably stop when they resist it. But I'm compelled. I can't help it." She shrugged as if trying to rid herself of her slight blush. "It's something I need to work on."

"You sound like you know a lot about this," he marveled, eyes ahead once more.

"Ever since I was a little, little kid."

For a moment their silence was tinged by a far away bustle and soft weeping, which was closer. Much closer.

"So, this guy, the one that you mentioned," she gently pursued, "you said you _knew_ him. He's gone?"

"Kaworu's gone. Just like her."

She followed his sightline immediately before them. They had arrived.

"She was only thirty…what do you usually say to her?"

As he knelt in front of Misato's stone marker, his black reflection answered the question posed. "Anything. About…how I'm doing, how school's going. She had a pet, so I tell her how he's doing over at an old classmate's house. I tell her about Asuka."

"Waitaminute…doesn't _Asuka_ usually tell her about Asuka?"

His head dipped. "She doesn't come here. I mean, when I visit Misato, she'll wait for me outside of the graves. But she never comes in."

"Why's that?" Mariko pressed. "I'd believe you if you told me she didn't get along with Misato."

"That wasn't it. She had problems with Misato, but that wasn't it." His shoulders rose with a short but steady breath. "Are you sure you want to hear this story?"

The tall girl shrugged as a light breeze kissed her and ruffled her black hair. "Only if you want to tell it." Mariko stared at his crouched form, an odd look passing over her otherwise pleasant face. "I like stories. A thousand words are worth a picture." She stepped closer behind him.

* * *

"_Ahh!_ How _long_ were you behind me?" Yukie asked, startled by the newcomer outside of the multiplex.

"About twenty seconds," answered a smirking Asuka.

"Your cheek already looks better," the first girl added quickly, openly staring at the bandaged wound.

"I haven't thought about it in a while," Asuka lied, her second to the class representative in the last week. Thanks to a dizzy spell during a P.E. volleyball match, it was easy to convince Yukie she had injured herself under similar circumstances.

"C'mon. Aki already got our tickets." The brunette started brusquely toward the theater's front entrance. "I can't believe you changed your mind, Asuka, you _never_ want to do anything when I ask."

Something plucked a nerve at the nape of Asuka's neck, and she convinced herself it wasn't guilt. "I didn't turn you down because I hated you or anything…"

"And I never took it that way. But, thanks anyway. I just wish I was thinking when I planned this. I would've asked Mariko to go with us."

"She pretty much had to go into Nerv today. She's new, so they have to catalogue, like, _everything_ she does before she can actually pilot. Hell, they'll probably want to know her period sooner or later, but it can't be hel-"

Asuka stopped abruptly and returned Yukie's stare, though the German girl's look wasn't nearly as questioning or confused, or fearful. It made sense in one insightful flash.

"You didn't know she was a pilot, did you?"

As they approached their classmate Aki Ando, a short girl with braided locks, Yukie's stare maintained its intensity as she confirmed Asuka's suspicion. "But…why would you need-"

"We _don't_ need a new pilot, Yukie, so relax, okay? And keep this to yourself, since it seems no one knows about it, please?"

_We **don't** need a new pilot_, thought Asuka. There've been no Angels, no discernable outside threat since Third Impact. Nerv's permanent standby policy and been dissolved only months later.

Shinji's and her 'missions' had less to do with defending humanity from giant space invaders, and increasingly more to do with studying the neural feedback caused by synchronizing with what was essentially a giant human being. The Second Child could not, off the top of her head, discern what possible application it might have in the real world, but apparently the team of scientists that visited Nerv about six weeks ago had.

Most importantly, there was only _one_ Evangelion. Its official designation was Evangelion Unit-14, but around Nerv, it was known as GINO –Gouki In Name Only. Oh, all of the pilots could synchronize with it, could make it walk, but that was the extent of the behemoth's capabilities as far as Asuka could tell.

Compared to Eva Unit-14, its older siblings had been precise and efficient marvels of technology, the absolute culmination of a dozen-dozen scientific disciplines. That was including Unit-00, the prototype that even three years ago wallowed in obsolescence.

Unit-14 was not even that. Linking to it was like pouring mud in your ears. It didn't have the effortless speed and clean lines of her Unit-02. When she sat in it she couldn't will power to surge in its limbs similar to that which Unit-03 had crushed her with. And it certainly wasn't Shinji's Unit-01, which quite simply was invincible.

Yukie had asked the right question. Why the hell _did_ they need a third pilot?

"I won't tell anyone, Asuka."

Before Aki was within earshot, the red head pilot said, "Good. I can see why you'd get nervous. I remember you from junior high. Trust me, Yukie. Nothing's happening."

"Hey, Asuka," greeted Aki.

"Hey yourself," said Asuka. "You guys have pretty good taste. I love this theater, I go here all the time."

* * *

"There're a few reasons Asuka doesn't come here, and it has less to do with Misato and more to do with Kaji. He doesn't have a marker here because he died before Third Impact, but Asuka thinks he should."

"This Kaji guy…she's never mentioned him to me," said Mariko from behind the boy hunched over the polished black marker.

"And she probably never will," Shinji answered. "When you talk to her, just try not to bring him up, or family, unless she brings it up first. Especially family."

"So what was Kaji to her? Her boyfriend?"

He gave a short laugh as he adjusted his weight. "She wished. She prayed. And did it out loud. In letters. Over the phone. To my face…"

Mariko noiselessly bit her lip. She looked at the silent grounds around them, bereft of life save for the two teenagers crowding the tomb of Nerv's Operations Planning Manager. They were alone. Shinji continued.

"He was nice, and I guess you could call him handsome, and he probably thought so too, because every other time I saw him he was hitting on some woman. But he was, like, thirty years old. And he belonged to Misato."

"But, you say it _wasn't_ about Misato?" Mariko hesitantly reaffirmed to no one in particular.

"Just try to understand that this place is nothing but sadness to the people that lived here when this whole mess was happening," he steadily explained to the small monolith. "She's on edge when she comes down here; you see it in her eyes. It makes her skin crawl to see visitors here smiling and laughing, taking pictures."

He must have sensed Mariko wincing.

"Mariko, I don't mean you. I mean the people that come down here like they're on some field trip. I think it's disrespectful too, but Asuka, she gets so crazy about it." He shrugged as Mariko fidgeted behind him. "But them being here is just a consequence of everything that's happened. There's no real reason for pouring so much government money into this place, not anymore. The Angels are gone. You know Unit-14?"

"More than I ever wanted to know. Maya can be…_thorough_."

"Then you should probably also know that it's just a big, grey, rusty security blanket. I don't mean to scare you, but if there really _are_ more Angels, we're screwed."

"I don't get it, then. Why bother having an Eva if there aren't going to be more Angels? If you're going to bother building one, why not make it…" her brow twitched, "…not shitty?"

The Third Child settled on his haunches, and spared a glance at the girl practically standing on top of him. "Research. Nerv needs the money. It's the synchronization process scientists seem to be interested in, and you need pilots to synch."

His voice…shifted in tone subtly, as if tracing a one-degree arc. "The money that comes into Nerv from the experiments we run is supposed to be…substantial. Everything in the Geofront used to belong to Nerv. Maybe more than half of the grounds were decommissioned. Sora-Ichi Tower, all those other skyscrapers, the malls, Memorial and Tokyo-3 high schools, the golf course, Matsushiro Field House, that's all new. Business and tourism drive this place now."

"Listen to the professor!" She sounded truly impressed. "Someone's been doing their research."

"Someone's been here _way_ too long. You just learn things if you're here long enough."

"I can see why people would come here." She looked around. "Well…not _here_ here. I think this city is gorgeous."

"Well so did the guy who wanted Asuka to take his picture in front of the Memorial. If he hadn't been a German tourist, who knows _what_ she would've done to him."

"When I imagine it," she said. "I keep seeing things packed in ice."

"So do I." And they both shuddered.

"Shinji?"

"Yes?"

"How do you know there aren't anymore Angels, for sure?"

* * *

"Aki, I don't know. That's something you'd have to ask Shinji about. He knows much better than I do." Asuka paused as she grabbed the popcorn from the counter. _So much for keeping Aki out of earshot_, thought the German. The girl had pretty good hearing. _She'd better be good at keeping secrets, too._

"Actually, no, don't ask him. You're going to have to take my word for it."

Aki lifted an eyebrow but said nothing as the three made their way to theater eight.

"So…how are you and him doing now?" Yuki asked, grinning smartly at Asuka, who threw her full hands up as best she could.

"Why does everyone assume I'm going out with that skinny little boy?"

"Because you've been living alone with him for two straight years," Aki stated matter-of-factly, completely unfazed by Asuka's bluster.

"Yeah, I know. I _know_. But it's just convenience. I mean, we make money-"

Never mind that Shinji, her, and Touji were set for life by a repentant Japanese Government…

"- but sharing the apartment is cheaper than living alone."

"Oh," said Yukie. "Then you must be pretty happy Mariko's staying with you two, now."

"Yeah," Asuka lied, her _third_ to Yukie in the past week. "We had an extra room-"

"Living right down the hall from you and Shinji," Yukie said.

"One more person to clean the toilet-"

"With Mariko here you're freed up," asserted Aki. "Now you don't have to wait for Shinji when he has clean up duty."

"That's right," Asuka confirmed, smiling tightly. Weren't they at theater eight yet?

"Or eat with him during lunch," offered Yukie.

"Or sit with him during the class trip," Aki quickly added.

"Or partner up with him on Activities Day," Yukie volleyed.

"Or send him messages during class about how loudly he was snoring the other night and where'd he put your blue and green polka-dot panties-"

"YOU TWO. ARE. _STOOGES!_"

Yukie and Aki stared wide eyed at Asuka's manic outburst while other theater patrons went out of their way to avoid the obviously insane foreigner. This was rather difficult at the moment, as the girl was partially blocking the only entrance to theater eight. Leashing her fire-breathing dragon, Asuka stepped out of the way and up to the two stunned girls.

"I call Moe," said Yukie before Asuka could offer a grudging apology.

"I call Larry," Aki quickly followed.

Asuka closed her mouth, then smiled and slowly shook her head. "I'm sure as hell not Curly."

"You can be Shemp," Aki helpfully suggested with a shrug.

Asuka shot her a queer gaze. "Who the hell's Shemp?"

"The fourth stooge," said Yukie.

"I don't do replacements," Asuka established. "Can we be another trio of early twentieth century film icons?"

"No," the other two girls said in unison.

"_Fine_. I'm Shemp." She turned to face the entrance to the screen. "So this is supposed to be scary, right?"

Aki leaned into Yukie as they followed Asuka in. "How much you wanna bet Asuka's little tantrum will be scarier than anything we see in the next two hours?"

"Forget _that_. What the hell's scarier than blue and green polka-dot panties?" Yukie asked.

"Will you two just shut up abouHOW THE HELL DO YOU KNOW _THAT_?"

* * *

"Because I was God when Third Impact was happening. How's _that_ for arrogant?"

"That's…yeah, that's pretty arrogant. Can you back it up, Shinji?"

"Not a chance. Any power I had at that moment, I lost it when I lost Unit-01. I wished it all away."

She sounded subdued behind him when she asked, "So…what did you do with that power? What was it for?"

"It depends on who you ask. I suppose…if it really was the power of God, it was for anything and everything." His fingers reached out to momentarily caress the headstone. They came away with a slight film of grime. "But you probably guessed that I didn't do anything to make your life better."

"I don't remember much from Third Impact," Mariko said as she reached into her satchel. "There were a lot of voices, screaming. Now, don't ask me why I know this, but I knew that it wasn't out of fear. The screaming got closer, I think I screamed too. Then…I woke up on my apartment floor."

She stopped groping in her bag and handed Shinji a red cloth over his shoulder. He noticed and took it, smiling graciously before turning back and putting the rag to work.

"Are you mad?" he suddenly asked. "I could have wished all of your problems away. I blew it."

"I don't get mad easily. Even if I did, it wouldn't be right for me to be angry at you. It wasn't like it was your responsibility to change my life."

He shook his head as he wiped at Misato's marker. "Yes it was, because at that moment I was the only one that _could_. Kaji taught me that. And he was right. I try to live my own life, like Misato wanted me to do, but that doesn't change the fact that I failed everyone. Everyone in the world."

He stopped wiping. "I failed because I was angry. I…" Shinji Ikari laughed as he knelt, but it was not a happy sound. "I should've been thinking about Asuka or Rei, or Kaworu or mom or Misato, something…I don't know…positive when it was all happening. I couldn't.

"But I thought about the soldiers that killed all those people at Nerv, tried to kill me. They _shot_ Misato. Shot her right in the _back_. I thought about the people that sent the soldiers there. I thought about my father, and I got angry." His voice grew low and cold. "**And then I made them all pay.**"

"What…" Mariko mustered before she had to swallow. "W-what did you do to them?" If Shinji noticed her newly clenched fists and her sudden labored breathing, he made no indication. She screwed her eyes closed as if shutting out something onerous. And then she bit her lip. Hard. Shinji answered the shaking young woman behind him.

"Everyone except my dad, I…if there was a name for the place I made for them and sent them, it'd be hell." He shrugged. "I wouldn't be surprised if they were still alive. I don't know how time works there. In any case they'll never find their way back here. I saw to that."

"How about…" She took a breath, and it was as fragile as glass. "What about your dad?" A wavering hand unclenched and found its way back into her satchel, shuffling through its owner's belongings once more.

"I killed him."

The hand stopped moving.

"I found my way to him when he should've seen beautiful things, and I made sure that no matter where everyone ended up, he wouldn't be joining us. I _punished_ him."

Mariko shut her eyes again. Tightly. She stifled the slight whimper that quivered her pink lip, once again haltingly exhaled.

"But that's all I did, Mariko. Punish and feel angry and kill. It was as if…as if I became every injustice I had been dealt since father abandoned me. It was all I could feel. In the end, it was like riding a bike all your life, and then suddenly flying a fighter jet. I crashed and burned. I didn't have enough control. I didn't have enough time. When I actually began to understand the things I could do, it was all over. So…" He threw his hands up to the crystal blue sky.

"Here we are. The best friend I ever had still has one arm and leg, haven't seen him in years. Asuka shuts me out. Rei is gone. Misato is still dead. And now I'm a murderer."

"_No._"

Shinji finally turned and stood at the indignant force behind Mariko's denouncement.

"No," she repeated, her dark bangs obscuring her eyes. "You're kind…you appreciate kindness. Good people appreciate kindness. Why do you even _think_ these things about yourself, Shinji?"

"Because it's true."

"You're no killer, _alright_?"

"I didn't mean to upset you. But it doesn't matter, really, how nice I act, or how many dinners I cook for you and Asuka. I was changed that day. I killed. Nothing I ever do will change that. I don't even feel that bad about it."

"So that's how it is?"

"Yeah. That's how it is."

She nodded to herself, and then burst into tears. Then she hid her face in shame with her palms as Shinji stood before her, the offer of comfort implicit in their closeness. She took him up on it and embraced him. Hard.

"W-what's wrong?" he asked when he could finally breathe.

"What if…I told you…I've done things I'm not proud of?" he heard her question between shuddering breaths at his ear.

"I think…there's a limit to forgiveness. Then there should be punishment. I truly believe that now. Some people deserve to pay."

"But I don't want you to hate me, Shinji."

"Then don't tell me what you did, if you honestly think it's that bad."

"Y-you're okay with that?" she asked with greater composure. "Running from the truth like that?"

"It's what I'm being punished for. What's one more drop in the bucket?"

"You're _not_ a killer," she reaffirmed at length, sniffling.

"Why can't I ever say the right thing?"

She squeezed tighter.

* * *

"You can let _go_ now, Aki," Asuka told the shorter girl gripping her arm with the gentleness of a hydraulic press. "So which was scarier, the color of my panties or the movie?"

"Shut up," said Aki, releasing the red head's arm with a loud huff as they walked out into the bright multiplex lobby. "Not everyone can be a soldier girl, Asuka."

"Yeah, I suppose that's true," said Asuka as she put her hand to her mouth for maximum haughtiness. "Actors with prop axes really don't compare to giant faceless hell beasts attempting to atomize you with particle beams."

"A particle _what_?" Yukie asked as Aki sipped her soda.

"Particle beam. Made from…" Asuka paused. "…particles."

Yukie was nonplussed. "What university did you graduate from, again?"

"Technische Universtät München. And don't you forget it."

"How the hell am I gonna remember it if I can't even pronounce it?"

The Second Child rolled her eyes. "C'mon, Yukie," she chided, "All that time you spend with your boyfriend? That tongue's gotta be good for _something_."

"I'm finished my soda now," a slightly ill-looking Aki informed them, dumping the remaining beverage into a nearby trash receptacle. "What now?"

"We get some real food," Yukie offered, then looked to the outside and slightly frowned. "Does our weatherman always have to suck? It's going to be hot and sunny or hot and rainy, and it's _not_ sunny. How do you get that wrong?"

"Hey! My brother-in-law's the weatherman!" Aki said defensively.

"Tell your brother-in-law he sucks," Yukie suggested.

Aki shrugged. "Okay," she said.

"God, Yukie, don't be such a damn baby," Asuka sighed. "It's just water. There's a place like half a block from here." The red head's grin was filled with unpleasant things. "I'd think you'd enjoy getting a little wet, Yukie."

Aki pinched the bridge of her nose. "Asuka…could you…_not_ say anything long enough for me to work up an appetite?"

Asuka answered in a placating tone. "Okay, _fine_, Queen Victoria. I shant further offend thine delicate sensibilities." She pointed a finger at Aki. "You should know I'm being easy on you. Do you have any idea how fun it is to say those types of things to Shinji? I swear one day I'm going to go too far and he's just going to _stop_ _breathing_."

End of Shiritori

A/N: Please don't take the following seriously…

Random A/N:

MC: It was about time I established the relationship that Mariko and Shinji have. And no, by relationship I do _not_ mean that Mariko will be, um, 'piloting Shinji's Evangelion' any time soon. Yeah…I like that euphemism.

Reader: So by 'any time soon,' you mean that they _will_ get together later on? You know what people say about ACC's getting with pilots, right?

MC: Get away from me.

Reader: That's awfully rude…after I spent all this time reading your long-ass chapter…

MC: What the hell is that supposed to mean?

Reader: Dude, put it this way…you're making up this conversation as you go along. You're essentially talking to yourself.

MC: Shut the hell up.

Reader: You only have eleven reviews…

MC: T-That's only because ACC's are the poisoned goat-cheese of Evangelion fanfiction! No one wants to read anymore stories about a new pilot.

Reader: Oh, then it makes perfect sense to write a thirteen chapter novel about an AUTHOR CREATED PILOT.

MC: Bite me. I'm watching something violent and then going to bed.

Reader:P

MC: Smartass. Thank you for reading and your criticism. Ja.

Reader: Wait, how can you follow up 'bite me' and 'smartass' with your 'thank you' spiel? That's a little disingenuous, don't you think?

MC: Where's my bat…

Reader: Aren't you forgetting something?

MC: Forgot to put my foot up your…Next Chapter: Flash


	7. The Green Sorrow of the Grey Coyote

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is a Studio Gainax production, its characters created by Hideaki Anno. They say the word, and this story ceases to exist.

**A/N: The following is only an omake; in fact, if it were not in the context of this story, it would not be considered Evangelion fanfiction _at all_. That being said, it is not essential to the main storyline, hence the omake tag. With that in mind, read on…or pass it up. Chapter 7 will be up later in the week. Thank you for reading and your criticism. Ja.**

In the Dark Room Omake: The Green Sorrow of the Grey Coyote

By MidnightCereal

He drove.

Sitting high in the cabin of his pickup truck, his eyes followed only what the piercing light let him see. High beams cut through what would otherwise have been total blackness, parting the sea of arid darkness like the bow of a cutter. When he passed, the night closed in on the feeble luminescence and devoured it.

His face was a stagnant, squalid mask. His steel eyes were a place where things went to die. His mouth, a long flat line, ate those things. Age had carved lines into his brow, his chin, and around the eyes where things went to die.

The blue-green glow of the dashboard shone softly on most of his countenance, but not those lines, oh no. There was a darkness there that no artificial light could ever reach.

He drove.

* * *

She walked. The slight downward slope she hiked caused her to adjust the backpack for the umpteenth time. She blew out a breath in the cool, crisp air, and it was audaciously loud against the sound deprivation that closed in on her as the night had three hours ago. Her left boot scuffed the road; her right kicked a pebble squatting defiantly at the edge of the desert wilderness. She looked out to it, and was met by a blue that flirted with a dozen shades of ebony.

Suddenly, her hiccupping laugh carried into the lightless vacuum. Just as suddenly she shut down the manic, unstable sound as she coughed, the involuntary reflex accompanied by a slight fog at her cold lips.

She walked.

She stopped. She turned around.

Behind her, something white and glinting broke laterally and spilled across the distant horizon like milk. Bright, large eyes rose to the crest of the inclined land. They loomed, glowed and gleamed, large and growing larger by the half second.

Absently she tugged at the sleeve of her brown jacket and folded her arms across her chest as it approached. She coughed when the light beams stabbed at her corneas, and just for a moment she brought her hand up to shield her green eyes as they adjusted.

The thing the light belonged to throttled down as it rolled up and then stopped at her side. It revealed itself to be a truck, red and perhaps a decade old, but no older. Even in the weak light the bed behind the cabin was obviously busy.

That wasn't what held her attention. Rather, she stared back at the ghost of her reflection in the window of the passenger side door. There was a low electronic whine as the tempered glass sank into the interior of the door, and she soon was staring at a new face. It was old, and gentle. And smiling.

"Gone already, are ya?" he asked.

"I…gotta be in Anderton in about an hour. I missed the shuttle."

"Anderton?" He blinked and made a face as he stared out the windshield for a second, then looked back at her questioningly. "Anderton?"

"There's a bus there that goes to LAX. It'll only take about forty minutes to walk there. It's only four more miles."

"You can do four miles in forty minutes?"

"I can walk fast, Mr. Douglass."

"I can get you there in four minutes." He grinned like a satisfied grandfather. "Four warm minutes." He patted the passenger seat. "Let's get you out of that cold, young lady."

She shook her head and smiled apologetically. "Yeah…no. Thanks, though. I'd prefer to walk. Thanks."

"You're gonna walk out here all by yourself? In the middle of nowhere?"

"Yeah," she shrugged tensely.

"Oh, you're breaking my heart, Mariko!" he said with feigned hurt.

She put a hand to the heart beneath her brown jacket. "_Aww_, I'm sorry, Mr. Douglass! I'm not trying to hurt your feelings. I'm…just weird like that, you know?"

"You're sure? I just saw a coyote out here about a minute ago. Sure you wanna be out here with those things?"

"I'm not worried about some little coyote. They don't bother anyone out here anyway, right?"

"Well, I don't know. Even if they don't, there're worse things than coyotes, Ms. Buick, all the way out here. A lot can happen in four miles, and I'm just looking out for you."

She opened her mouth to speak, and then shut it with a click. She bit her lip and broke eye contact, staring beyond the headlights, in the direction of Anderton. All that was visible was black foregrounds against black backgrounds. Nothing and nothing, for miles and miles….

There was a click as she pulled the handle. The door swung open in a silent arc as she swung her weight into the truck's interior.

She smiled. "I guess I should say thanks, then. It was just that I wasn't keen on putting you ou-"

She spun away and back in one violent motion, and before the roar from the first round that whizzed past her head faded, he was aiming his pistol at her skull again. She ducked lower, the second slug punching through the side upholstery as if it were wet tissue. He grunted as her leg came around in a blur, catching him under his armpit awkwardly as a third shot rang out and tore through the passenger seat above her left shoulder.

Her boot pressed against his ribcage as she pushed off, tumbling out of the passenger compartment in a ragged heap. He groped first at her ankle, then at the gun that had clattered below the glove compartment after she had kicked him.

The black-haired teenager wrestled with the strap of her backpack before she shrugged it completely off and jumped to standing. She exploded into the desert night, her first three steps enough to bring her to full speed.

There was a crack, another, one more as three more bullets chased after her, kicking up dark blue dust as they all missed their marks. Then a new sound challenged the pounding of her footwear on the arid rocky landscape, and it was the roar of something machine-like. The sound grew in anger and proximity, accompanied by duel beams of luminescence, growing larger and larger as the roar approached her…

She leapt to the side as the machine barreled through the space she had occupied a sliver of a fraction of a second previously. She hit the ground with a grunt, rolling and coming to a stop on her back. As she panted, the teenager peered upside down at the back of the vehicle, its brake lights glowing a dull red…

…which grew brighter as the truck skidded to a stop and suddenly reversed direction…

* * *

He lurched forward violently when the back of the Ford leapt upwards with a deafening metallic crack. It returned to Earth and limped to a stop, and somewhere below him something vital periodically creaked, a sound that shrank in frequency and intensity until it died all together.

He pulled at the lock with a grizzled hand, his other occupied with his cold black sidearm. He brought the piece to bear as he bullied the door open with a hard shove. Grunting, he slid out of the seat and to the ground, whipping his head around on a frictionless swivel.

Warily, he approached the back of his truck, slowly inching into a crouch. He stopped, listened. Nothing. He abruptly turned to glare at the blackness, ubiquitous but for the high beams at the front of his pickup. Emptiness.

He turned back toward his flat-bed. His knees creaked and he wheezed as his crouch deepened. He paused again, tensed, and plummeted the rest of the way down. His shoulder absorbed the shock as he planted a calloused palm. His trigger finger twitched, and he finally aimed the gun at the space beneath the undercarriage.

He just barely refrained from blowing himself to kingdom come when a pungent, familiar odor reached his nose, a trickling his ears.

But he _saw_ nothing.

He stood and whirled once more, faster than a man of sixty-five should be allowed.

He saw nothing.

The scream of something small and insignificant hurtled through the darkness.

_Boots scuffing gravel yards ahead of the hood of his truck_. He aimed and squeezed twice and the cold steel barked twice, the echo howling and fading soon after.

"You think I'm wasting my bullets. Don't you?" he asked the blue-black night. "You should know better. I _know_ I almost plucked your-" He traced a shadowy outline before it lost definition, firing again. "Run, or be still. Keep quiet, or scream like the goddamned lunatic we both know you are, it don't matter. I knew another Ranger older than me, and when he was ninety he capped a sparrow at forty yards. I'm dirt old, but I ain't ninety. And you ain't no damned sparrow."

He heard the scuffing again, but waited. The smell of fuel was stronger. He stepped away from his Ford as if navigating a den of slumbering lions. "Maybe I want you to hear this, anyway. What'd be the point of coming out here for you and shooting you if you didn't even know why? I bet you can guess, can't you?"

"You called the police-" and before she could even finish answering he sent a stream of ammunition in the direction of the soft question.

"I'm sorry about that, Ms. Buick," he said with a sick sincerity. "I jumped the gun there. I guess I just _really_ want to kill you." Almost before the empty metal jacket clattered to the ground he jammed a full magazine into the butt of the black pistol with a swiftness beyond mere instinct.

"Jackie never shut up about you," he claimed. "Always talking about how sweet you were. How you have enough love in you for the whole damned world." Laughter from him, remorseless and turbulent. "She couldn't even sit down last week, so excited, couldn't wait for her pretty friend from Japan, the one with beautiful green eyes."

A flash of color, white, two pinpoints of emerald. He pulled the trigger. Boom. Boom._Boom_.

"So to answer your question, _no_, princess. I _didn't_ get the cops. But when I'm through with you, you'll wish I _had_." Boom._Boom_. "Jackie said you were a good listener, that people could…_confide_ in you? Can I confide something, sweetheart?"

She didn't say yes. She didn't say no, either.

"Me and Rosie couldn't have kids of your own. We tried. Lord knows we tried, so He sent us Jackie. Even though she wasn't ours, we treated her like she was every time we saw her, and that was enough. THAT GIRL WAS A LIGHT THAT FILLED ROSIE _UP_! And I know it was _you_ that put it out. You live out here long enough, you know a rattle snake when you see one."

And then, about twenty yards ahead of him, a shape quickly scuttled low over the soil. He aimed just ahead of it…

BOOM.

There was the unmistakable cry of pain when it collapsed and tumbled over itself, and it made no sound when its momentum finally halted.

"That was for Jackie," he spat, "you _evil_ bitch."

After a moment of raw silence he headed slowly to the body, though it was no more mobile than the rocks cluttered at his old black boots. The lines around the motionless mass gained definition with each cautious step. He kept the piece low and at the ready, drawing a slow breath as he stalked ever closer. It still did not move as his exhalation crystallized into a translucent white steam. Finally he was there, and he stared.

The dead coyote stared back.

The air behind him shifted.

* * *

He whirled like a man of twenty and she was yet faster as her palm latched onto his approaching wrist like a handcuff. She tilted her head to one side, letting the breath from two bullets blow at a tuft of black hair as they whistled by her. Her grip tightened.

He turned fully to give his other fist a clear path to her jaw, but she snatched the strike out of the air with uncanny speed, squeezing the appendage with sickening pressure. He tried to say something, but wheezed instead as he turned all exertion toward resisting her. He gritted his teeth in the weak light, his arm shaking as he tried to overcome the force slowly curling the muzzle toward his abdomen.

"You're right about this place, you know?" she said with an abruptness, her voice sharp like a brittle sword. "There _are_ worse things out here. You and me. But I'm _not_ what you say I am."

He snorted like a mad bull and pushed harder. The muzzle was closer. He coughed or yelled, or both, possibly neither.

"Don't you _make_ me out to be some heartless, soulless…I _do_ love _everyone_. I don't…_I_…" She broke. "YOU DON'T THINK I WAS SICK AFTERWARDS? YOU THINK I _WANTED_ THIS TO HAPPEN?" She blinked furiously in the darkness and took in air with three jagged gulps before she continued.

"YOU TELL _ME_! You think I laughed when I was ripping her open? Or did I puke my guts out, did I cry and gag for _HOURS_?" The wetness worked its way from her green eyes to her lip, and wavered on it when the flesh trembled. "_ANSWER ME!_" she screamed. He did by groaning under the precise, relentless, effortless strength that folded his arm in on itself.

She squeezed harder. Something in his wrist creaked.

"You should have called the police."

And then all at once, the crack of bones and gunfire. He screamed from one and jerked from the other.

With a wheeze he sank as the pressure on his crushed wrists dissolved. Yet he clawed at her as though she were a life raft in the ocean of death beginning to drown him. Moisture dripped from her chin as she looked down, and when she gazed upwards at the lightless chasm above her, it ran down her jaw and over her throat before it disappeared from view.

One of his damaged, twitching mitts still clawed at her pants leg. He hacked up something vital as he knelt. She acknowledged the groping after a minute by gently removing the pistol from his feeble grasp. Her grip on his forearm was not unlike the jaws of a lion at the nape of her cub's tender neck.

As she pulled him, she looked down and spoke.

"She used to talk you up all the time, too, did you know that? She'd never shut up about you, either. But I mean it wasn't just about how _nice_ you were. You think she's just sweet and like your stories." She shook her head as her green eyes met his grey, glazed ones.

"Nah. She _wanted_ you. She told me the things she wanted to do to you…and, I was like, _wow_, no _way_. I come back after all these years, and little Jackie grew _up_. I don't mean to insult you, but that's just a little disturbing to think about, you know?"

A bloody, garbled, gurgling moan weakly pushed its way out of his mouth.

"Yeah, me too," she said, looking up. "Here we are."

* * *

When they had reached the truck she bent over to grab him by the soaked fibers of his ruined flannel vest. She lifted him as though he were a heavy sack of feathers, hefting him into a sitting position in the driver seat.

"She wouldn't want you dying thinking she was some freak."

His head lolled on his rubbery neck as he gurgled once more. She grabbed his face with both hands, turned it until their eyes again locked. "It was how you carried yourself, Mr. Douglass. She didn't care _what_ you were doing, she saw nobility in you. Now, if you had found out about how she felt and took _advantage_ of her, you wouldn't have been very noble at all. But she knew you wouldn't, and she liked you even more because of that.

"You have to know she loved that about you. I see it, too…even though you tried to run me over."

She brushed her thumb over and then deeply kissed his bloody lips. Her mouth left his within a minute, and as she pulled away a slight smile graced her features. She freed his head, and it rolled on his shoulders like a nutating disk.

"That was for Jackie," she told him after brushing at her lips with the back of a hand. "Say hi to her for me."

And with that, she shut the door, and stalked toward the road with a long gait…

…but not before stopping midway, turning around, extending her arm and aiming the weapon at the end of it beneath the undercarriage, firing once…

Once again, there was light that scraped at the edges of the darkness.

She walked.

**And wherever she went, that was the place where things went to die.**

A/N: Let's try this again…Do not take the following seriously…

Random A/N:

MC: No, this isn't really essential to the story. I don't think so at least. But I had this idea in my head as soon as I finished writing the original. So here it is, mid-week omake, all for you. Now as for me, I'm gonna make good on my pen name. Isn't that right, Box of Frosted Flakes?

Frosted Flakes: …

MC: I'm so lonely…

Next Chapter: Flash…No, really this time.


	8. Flash

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is a Studio Gainax production, its characters created by Hideaki Anno. They say the word, and this story ceases to exist.

It is a sad commentary on the life of Asuka Langley Sohryu that Mariko Buick is not the worst thing to have ever happened to her…

In the Dark Room: Flash

By MidnightCereal

"Shinji, pay attention," Maya instructed over the com-link. "I briefed you on the new core data we've installed for you in GINO. We're going to record some basic information –synch rate, psychograph, heart rate, toxicity, VA links- and then we'll run you through some basic exercises." She stood amongst the seated technicians in the control room and folded her arms. "Roger?"

"Roger," came the response somewhere inside of the patchwork behemoth standing in the sterile white of the test cage.

"Sachiko, get him up on the screen."

"Yes ma'am."

To Maya's left the pilot's image appeared on a vid-hud with a faint ping. The new input shook him from a reverie and caused him to look questioningly at Dr. Ibuki through the video link. "Is something wrong, Maya?" he suddenly asked.

"Nothing's wrong. I just want to be able to see you since this isn't just another synch test. You can begin the startup sequence. We're ready in here."

Within a minute, Unit-14's optics, a set of narrow binocular slits, glowed with a dull life.

"Startup sequence completed," Sachiko smoothly announced. "VA links nominal. Fusion nominal. Psychograph nominal. Synch rate hold at…seventy-nine percent."

_That's already four points higher than with Unit-14's old core data_, Maya thought, her mood touched by a small triumph…

"Heart rate at seventy-two BPM."

…which was quickly crushed by her kohai's last words.

"Shinji, what's wrong?" Maya asked, consciously curbing the sudden anxiety.

"I don't know," he answered, visibly forcing the liquid into his lungs.

"Well, what are you feeling right now?"

"It's…hard to explain. I can feel the Eva's arms…they're like my own now, like it was with Unit-01. But it's not easy." He then bashfully cast his eyes downward. "I also have to go to the bathroom."

"Oh…" said Maya. "Um…number one or number two?"

He glanced up, looking decidedly ill. "What?"

Maya looked apologetic, alarmed by his newly labored breathing.

"We have to know, Shinji. This might be a systematic problem inherent with the new core data."

"Oh. Its aaaAAUUGGHHH…" He trailed off with an agonized gasp.

"Sever the connection and eject the plug," Maya immediately ordered.

_Stay calm._

"Severing connection." Sachiko's fingers flew over the console. _Why?_ The synch-disconnect command was now _one_ switch for instances exactly like _this_...

"_Lieutenant!_"

Sachiko jumped at Maya's unusually sharp tone. "I-I'm sorry!" She zeroed in on the switch, right under her damned nose.

She flicked it.

Shinji responded with a gurgling shriek and convulsions that quickly grew in violence and frequency. Sachiko's eyes became large.

"The signal's not being received!" The green tech warned.

"Heart rate at ninety-three BPM," an operator behind Maya informed.

_Stay calm, please. _

Maya's panic grew into a lump in her rolling stomach as she risked a look at the vid-hud. His back was arched now from some nameless torture. His fingers curled like talons and when his face was visible, the whites of his eyes stared back…

The doctor tore her own eyes away from the horrible sight and shot to his status screen._Everything_ was within tolerable limits.

_Please don't break here, not in front of Sachiko_…

"Try again, Sachiko. Manually this time, from module 303." It wouldn't work, but she needed to keep them calm, busy while she thought of a way to save the young man. The equipment, all of it, was performing optimally.

_He's trying to scream._

"Heart rate is a hundred-thirteen!"

They had run a systems check on GINO before the test began. They had run simulations with a virtual pilot, _weeks_ before Shinji had stepped into the plug and had been screwed into the back of the giant machine.

_No. Don't look at the machinery; look at what it's doing to him. What are his symptoms? He was having trouble moving the limbs. He looked ill. He was ill. Increased heart rate. He was having trouble breathing…oh!_

"Sachiko! Forget about severing the connection! Drain the plug!"

"Right! Ejecting plug-"

"_NO!_" Maya finally screamed, the woman's poor listening skills vaporizing the last vestiges of patience. "_Just_ drain the plug! An emergency drain out of the back of the neck!"

Her protégé's fingers rapidly punched the plastic keyboard. Maya dared to look at the feed into Shinji's entry plug, and she began to feel relief as the orange cloudy liquid sank below view, sloshing against the virtual lens. His wet hair clung to his slick forehead in thick brown clumps. Mercifully, he had stopped convulsing.

He had stopped moving all together, in fact.

* * *

"It wasn't me, Asuka. I wouldn't…not to Shinji."

"Not unless you had to."

If there was a suitable retort to Asuka's simple, obvious answer, Mariko did not utter it. Even if she did, Asuka would not hear of it. So for yet another set of minutes, they sat on opposite sides of Shinji's prone and unconscious form, the only sound in his Nerv infirmary suite being the young man's respirator. As it fed him enriched oxygen, they sat.

Halfway to Mimi's Café, Asuka's phone rang, and if the looks Yukie and Aki had on their faces mirrored her own when Maya had told her the news, she must've appeared horrified. And she was. Since Asuka had arrived at Nerv an hour ago, a soaking panicked wreck, Shinji had not moved.

"I believe you, if you say you wouldn't do those things to him, that you like him," Asuka finally said, her blue eyes never leaving the peaceful face of her long-time partner. "I think that you like him the way you liked everyone in that photo album; that girl with the glasses-"

"No, Asuka."

Asuka looked at Mariko. "Or that man with the blue dress shirt and black tie, the one that was missing an ear-"

"No. _No_."

"The woman with the broken neck-"

"Maya said it was something with the LCL purity! How would I even _know_ how to-"

"You…you have the_nerve_ to sound _offended_?" Asuka interrupted with a halting unsteady breath and increasing decibel level. "Mariko…you are easily the _SICKEST_ little bitch I've ever met."

"You'll see," Mariko informed the other girl with a voice simultaneously hushed and determined. "Maya's going to tell you what happened, that I didn't do it. I didn't do _anything_ wrong, okay? I promised myself I wasn't going to hurt anyone else. It's happening this time."

"I'm just wondering, how many times have you told yourself that? Just like that? How many times?" Asuka shut her mouth, jaw muscles bulging an instant later. She glared at the sullen child across Shinji's prone form. Her jaw unclenched as she said, "I'm not going to let you do to us what you did to everyone else."

In an instant, the guilt creasing Mariko's brow dissolved. "And I'm not letting you turn me in," she promised in return, a hint of steel now creeping into her tone. "What did I say before? I plan to live as I see fit." She paused as if thinking of something. "Nothing's going to change what I've done, not how nice I am or how many people I'll make happy. But I can live better than that. That's all I can do."

"What…_asshole_ did you pull that out of? God, you sound like you've been talking to Shinji!" said Asuka, composure all but dissolved and now making now attempt to control her noise level. "That is _not_ all you can do! You can do a _fuck_ load of things, you psycho, and you can start by getting the hell out of my _life_!"

"How long have you been standing there?"

Mariko was addressing someone at the door, and Asuka also snapped to an appalled Maya frozen at the entrance.

"I-I just got here." Dr. Ibuki shut her mouth and approached the girls, one brooding in a simmering anger, the other newly imbued with a jarring calm. "What were you two fighting about?"

"It's not important. Not right now."

"I'll be the judge of that, Asuka. I know that you're upset about Shinji, but he'll be fine. Biting each other's heads off won't help him."

"Maya, what happened? How did this happen?" Mariko inquired while eyeing the Second Child. Dr. Ibuki inhaled deeply.

"After the startup sequence completed, the LCL purification subsystem began to malfunction. Usually, LCL has a particle contamination ratio of about three parts per million. The subsystem couldn't monitor the upper toxicity limit-"

"So the LCL began to turn into poison," Asuka rightly concluded. She inwardly bristled at the righteous vindication painted on Mariko's face. "_Why_ didn't you just shut it off like we always do when things go to hell? Sever the connection?"

"Asuka, we tried, that was the first thing we did. The Eva wasn't accepting the signal."

"Why the hell _not_?"

Maya gave a tired sigh. "We don't know yet. Sachiko-"

"You're supposed to know, dammit!" the German yelled as she began rising from her stool. "How could you mess this up? Why did you even let him get in that shit heap unless you knew this core rewrite wasn't going to turn his brain into jelly?"

By now the doctor was shaking her head, visibly distressed. "We did simulations, Asuka. We did everything, _everything_ by the book. You've been doing this for three years now. You know better than anyone else that these things happen here-"

"And that would be good enough for you, wouldn't it?" Asuka questioned.

Maya was incredulous. "_What_ did you just say?"

"Oh, _now_ you're deaf? _Un_believable. And we're supposed to _trust_ you? You've been here longer than almost anyone I know, and you're so brain-fucked that you can't even do your job-"

"_I KNOW HOW TO DO MY JOB!_"

Asuka sat back down.

Shinji's respirator performed its duty with a steady drawn-out hiss, once, three times, even times.

"Wow. He's _really_ unconscious."

Maya looked at Mariko. Asuka looked at Mariko. Maya and Asuka looked at each other. And then suddenly their nervous laughter bounced off the white walls.

So easily. Mariko knew exactly what to say, had broken the tension that had pulled everyone one of their nerves taught so easily. It was a small thing, certainly. But now, for some reason, the germ of doubt had been spawned, and the red head couldn't help but wonder if the other teenager was telling the truth. About changing… about getting better….

"Asuka…" Maya managed after the spontaneous sound had ground to a halt, "I'm…sorry. I'm not so out of it that I don't realize you care about him."

Weighing suitable responses, the Second Child settled on ever-reliable feigned outrage. "Just tell _everyone_, Maya. I'm sure there are a few nurses that don't know I'm fond of this idiot."

"Oh, they know," Maya teased. "I'll tell you exactly what happened during the accident as soon as I know…in fact, why don't I tell you when we talk later this week? We'll probably know by then."

Mariko was smiling. "What're you two gonna talk about?"

"Well, we don't know yet." Maya answered. Asuka looked everywhere except at her new apartment mate. Her new apartment mate looked nowhere except at her.

"Can I come?" Mariko innocently asked.

Dr. Ibuki apologetically shook her head. "Sorry. We decided it's going to be a private talk. But, _we_ can talk later if you want. Did you want that?"

"Yeah. I want that." Mariko was still looking, still smiling at Asuka. "You're my guardian, after all. Maybe there're some things I should share with you, you know?"

"I know what you mean," Maya agreed as she happily nodded. She looked away from her two charges, around the room in a quick arc, and then at her wrist watch. "It's time to find out what went wrong." The young doctor once again eyed the teenagers. "It's about time for you two to go home also, don't you think? You have school tomorrow."

"What about-"

"Shinji?" Maya finished for Asuka. "I talked to Dr. Marshall. He said Shinji'll be up by tomorrow afternoon. If he's feeling well enough, they might even let him go home after they run some tests." She began walking to the door. "Goodnight, you two. Who knows, if we get enough rest, maybe we won't yell at each other so much tomorrow."

"I'm staying."_Please say yes, Maya_, was the mantra running through Asuka's mind. She couldn't go home tonight, because Mariko was still looking at her.

Asuka's declaration turned her guardian around. "Asuka, he'll be okay, really. They're only using the respirator until the sedative wears off. He'll wake up on his own."

"I don't care. I'm not putting anyone out. I even have an extra set of clothes here, already. I want to be here when he wakes up." The Second Child silently mused how the true meaning of her words would be completely lost on the Project E. Chairperson.

Has Mariko blinked yet?

"_Asuka_," Maya intoned, becoming annoyed once again. "Weren't you just listening? He won't be up until tomorrow aftern-oh _forget_ it." Dr. Ibuki slapped one hand on her thigh. "I'll ask the nurse to get a cover."

"And a pillow."

"_Fine_. A cover…_and_ a pillow." Maya turned slightly to eye Mariko. "Should I get a cover and a pillow for you, too?"

At long last Mariko took her eyes off Asuka before saying, "I don't think I'm wanted here. This'll be the first time in a while she gets to be with him without me around, you know?" And in one fluid motion she rose from her chair and lifted her satchel to her shoulder.

Maya now stood at the threshold, looking in. "Bye, you two. I'll be pretty busy for the next week, so if I don't see you do me a favor and _not_ kill each other. Okay?"

"We won't kill each other," Mariko assured her. "Goodnight, Maya."

Maya waved, spared Asuka a last glance, and then disappeared.

In the space of a second Mariko had replaced their guardian at the threshold. She adjusted her bag strap, looked down at her black shorts and tennis shoes, and rolled up the short sleeve of her navy blue button top. Apparently satisfied with her appearance, she looked into the room and said:

"See you at school, Asuka."

Mariko waved, spared Asuka a last glance, and then disappeared.

The suite's final conscious visitor looked down at the main occupant.

"Thanks for the day off."

* * *

Two pots of Kronung Coffee and seventy-one profanities after she had left the three pilots, Maya Ibuki sullenly trudged the familiar corridor to Commander Fuyutski's cavernous office.

Maya had poured over the results from the failed trial earlier in the day. No…that was Sunday. It was Monday now, and it had been for _I forgot my watch_ hours. The new core data had worked well enough so that its outputs fed a steady stream of data to Balthazar, and she had waded through the vast, chaotic mosaic of near-indecipherable numbers to determine how and why the LCL toxicity safeguards were ignored.

Sachiko was still refining test simulations with a virtual core (and pilot) to see if she could recreate the actual debacle. This was despite her sempai's request to stop the futile research. Maya did not press, knowing had she been in Fujiyama's position, with Dr. Akagi issuing snappish commands, she also would've been compelled to redeem herself.

That had always been a great fear of Maya's, of failing the woman that had taken her under her wing. Oddly, the prospect of Ritsuko chewing her ass off was nearly as disparaging as any Angel attack. It wasn't fair to Sachiko, to expect the new woman to be as proficient or swift as she herself had been. To Maya, perilous trial-by-fire scenarios had seemed a daily occurrence when she was the one sitting in Sachiko's chair.

The younger woman didn't have the experience. Neither did she have nearly as fine a teacher.

Knowing that self-deprecation or lamenting her protégé's shortcomings would do nothing to improve the current predicament, she turned her thoughts to the report she had prepared as she arrived at the office's front entrance. Not that she had much to say; when it came to the subject of discovering the cause of the inexplicable block-out of all synchronization sever commands, the endless lines of printout, the core schematics and the modified simulations all yielded one unanimous result.

"Nothing."

"You said the same thing five hours ago," Fuyutski objectively noted. The preliminary draft of the investigation rested in wrinkled fingers, the digits of his other hand rapping the dark cherry wood of his immense desk with a staccato report. Why did she imagine cracked shins when she looked at it? To Maya, the new commander always seemed small behind that desk in a way Gendo Ikari had not, though the latter man had been shorter of stature.

_But that's how everyone seems in this place_, she reflected when she glimpsed the tree of life, glowing red and hazy high above her. She needed glasses. Every time she stood at the threshold of this room, the figure sitting at the opposite end blurred as if someone had wrongly adjusted a lens before her. Even now she squinted at the commander and wondered how the black walls here managed to devour all light that penetrated the massive windows.

"I also told you that maybe seven, nine hours ago," Maya reluctantly added. "I know. I_can_ say it will only be a matter of time before we find the cause. Next I'll probably see if the inability to sever the synchronization is coupled to the loss of filtration monitoring. The Magi can analyze all possible scenarios in seconds, but to write the code will take-"

"I understand, doctor," the old man gently interrupted. "It sounds…intensive, something that requires rest to perform adequately."

"Sir?" She looked at him, truly puzzled.

"Maya, go _home_," he immediately elaborated, "like I will, in about ten minutes. I-" He waved off the protest that Maya had readied at her lips. "No, I don't want to hear it. Perhaps if you're fully rested there won't be any more mistakes. Shinji is fine, and all of your data will be sitting exactly where you left it whenever you get in…I'm sorry?"

"I'm saying," she began, inhaling burning plastic fumes before swallowing, "you think that I…made a _mistake_, and that lead to the incident today? Isn't that what you meant, _sir_?"

"I'm not condoning it, as they're always costly, but it is understandable. Even under Dr. Akagi they happened-"

"I did _not_. Make a _mistake_. _Sir_," she tersely stated, fighting a losing battle to retain her eroded composure.

"Ibuki, relax," he said softly as he put a hand up again as a peace gesture. But she had momentum now.

"I know I cannot be,_ever_, what Ritsuko was to this place, but I took her lessons to _heart_-"

"I _know_ that."

"I DON'T MAKE MISTAKES."

"Doctor-"

"I DON'T MAKE MISTAKES, I _DON'T_! IS THERE _ONE_ PERSON HERE THAT TRUSTS ME?"

"Doctor Ibuki, control yourself!" he finally yelled as he rose from his chair.

"Don't tell _me_ to control myself!" she fired back, now pointing a finger at her new superior.

_What am I doing?_

"I control myself every time I hear about one of the new people here, whispering about me, snickering about how I am now. They treat me like I'm some…absent-minded professor. I didn't _want_ to be like this, but what should that even _matter_ to anyone else? I _do_ my job. I control myself and I treat them with respect. I control myself when I'm being patient with Sachiko. Really, _really_ patient."

She lowered the finger as she finally took a breath, knowing how foolish she must have looked to the accomplished and dignified man. But she wasn't finished. "I don't make mistakes, okay? I…I ignore what I don't think is real. I never let what happened stop me from doing my job. I always get it done, don't I?"

Now she was finished, and despite her outburst, couldn't gather the courage to pull her gaze from a far dark corner.

"Doctor…" Fuyutski's brown, brilliant eyes, the wise eyes of a scientist, a teacher, changed as he rounded the desk. When he had reached her, putting a hand on her shoulder, they were the eyes of a father, "_Maya_, did you hear what you just said?"

"I'm not crazy…alright? I-I just…you have to understand, this helps me control it. The smell is the worst part, always. I _need_ to do my job right. I don't make mistakes here. It's all I have."

"How old are you?"

She finally looked at him. "Uh…twenty-seven." Why did she even have to think about it? Why did he ask?

"Maya…I don't know, and it's not any of my concern, what you do on your own time," he said quietly. "But I don't think, at twenty-seven, that this should be 'all you have'. You _need_ to find something else, because no matter how much control you culture, it's not going to be enough. Do you understand?"

"I agree…yes." She nearly broke into a smile, for some reason. Maybe she needed this. Someone just…_reassuring_ her. When Nerv had continued operations after Third Impact, it was naturally assumed –and rightfully so- that she would become the new head of Project Eva. She had dove head first into the post, eager to make her instructor proud and suffocate the disturbing memories that had infected her senses.

The first goal was impossible because, to her knowledge, Ritsuko Akagi was incredibly dead.

Achieving the second goal was akin to finding the answer to a question no one had asked; only now had the unmistakable stench of burning plastic begun to fade, and she had no idea why she had smelled it in the first place. It was _always_ like this…

"I suggest," he continued, "that you try finding that other thing after this investigation is over."

Her tired face predictably fell at his advice. "Are you relieving me, sir?" she asked, not even having the energy to look as distressed as she felt.

With a final squeeze he removed his hand from her shoulder. "It's not an order, doctor," he informed her, professionalism returning to his wizened voice, he to his chair behind the massive desk.

"It _will_ be an order if you don't take action, and soon. You need to address these issues. These new employees, the ones that whisper behind your back, they only do so because you're worth whispering about. Nerv needs_you_ as much as you need _it_. That's been the case since I first met you." He began to gather the papers on his desk.

"I…understand."

"Good. Start by going home. Now. That _is_ an order."

"Yes sir." She was tired. So tired she was cold. But she felt energized in another, different way. She turned to look back to the man at the desk.

"Commander, do you have children?"

He raised his grey brows in surprise and blinked at the unsuspected inquiry. "Children? No. No kids." And he shook his head as such.

"Why?"

"Perhaps there were things that I should've been doing at twenty-seven years old that I did not."

"Oh…" She closed her mouth and mulled over his last words. "Do you mean-"

"Don't think about it too hard. That's an order."

"Yes sir."

* * *

"You're up earlier than we expected, Mr. Ikari. Have to be somewhere?" said a smiling Dr. Andre Marshall. The forty-one year-old Canadian national leaned over the bedridden pilot and gripped the young man's wrist to take his pulse. "I almost didn't believe nurse Sakai when she said you were already coming out of it. If you were just a bit quicker, you could've caught Ms. Sohryu, too. You be sure to thank her, young man. As far as I know, she didn't leave the room all last night."

"Nu…t….u" the Third Child slurred groggily, eyes fluttering open for the first time. It did not escape the good doctor's notice.

"Yes, Shinji? Go ahead, I'm listening."

"Number two."

End of Flash

A/N: God, I love me some plot twists.

And don't look so shocked. It's reasonable -to me at least- that Maya, a woman who survived a premeditated government-sanctioned massacre, and had the finger of the mother of humanity pass through her and touch her soul, would suffer some post-traumatic stress. I don't care _how_ sweet she is. After all that, and dealing with a SNAFU, inexperienced protégés and bitchy foul-mouthed subordinates, and finally an unfounded back-handed accusation of incompetence from her only superior, she's ready to pop. So I let her pop.

Random A/N: Those of you reading on Media Miner: The following is in response to feedback I received on fanfiction (dot) net.

Did Somebody Say Death Match?

Y'know…I really wasn't trying to make Shinji a badass. I was really going for disgustingly bitter disaffected youth, a natural progression after a lifetime of being effed with. But, yeah, he turned out pretty broodified.

But then I thought about it, which is usually a bad thing.

I still am, so barring some horrible case of writer's block (i.e. getting crushed by an eighteen wheeler on Baltimore-Washington Parkway on Memorial Day weekend):

In the near future:

**Heaven or Hell: The ITDR AU Battle Royale Crossover**

See now? See what ya'll done started? I won't make it a point to do requests in the future, but I like Eva, I like Battle Royale, and I think Mariko is now developed enough as a character to make people care about whether or not she survives falling victim to an impartial BR Act lottery. I'm gonna think this one-shot out. It'll be out when I think it's good. Thank you for reading and your criticism (and this time, your ideas). Ja.

Next Chapter: Development


	9. Development

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is a Studio Gainax production, its characters created by Hideaki Anno. They say the word, and this story ceases to exist.

It is a sad commentary on the life of Asuka Langley Sohryu that Mariko Buick is not the worst thing to have ever happened to her…

In the Dark Room: Development

By MidnightCereal

To Asuka, it was junior high all over again.

There she sat disinterested among a roomful of equally disinterested peers. As the teacher continued to incessantly prattle on about things she probably knew more about than he did, his voice faded into the din of white noise lapping the shores of her distant, busy mind. The only one paying rapt attention was the class representative, her best(?) friend, a pretty and kind brunette moonlighting with a handsome jock.

Shinji was at Nerv recovering from injuries sustained in an accident caused by someone else's incompetence.

And waiting, lurking, snapping at the back of every errant thought was the dull ache coming from the knowledge that monstrous things were at every moment conspiring to literally destroy her.

There were only a few real differences, Asuka concluded. Rei Ayanami was no longer resting her head in a hand to apathetically gaze down to the outside courtyard. Damn doll. Touji Suzahara was about as handsome as water was dry. The monstrous things conspiring to destroy her were no longer giants. They could walk into Asuka's classroom, sit three meters from her, and act as if savagely murdering human beings was a minor character flaw that could be solved with a photo session and a little girl talk.

Asuka removed her eyes from Mariko Buick before the other -very insane- girl noticed them on her. Do nothing, nothing at all to arouse a suspicion that was probably already piqued by Maya's words the night before. That Asuka and Dr. Ibuki had agreed to talk privately did not guarantee that Mariko's…peculiarities would be a topic of conversation.

As far as Maya knew, they would be talking about anything. And that would be Mariko's problem, wouldn't it?

Not for the first time a deep shame filled Asuka; had she sunk so low as to sneak around the other girl like some timid mouse? What was happening to her? How long ago had it been since she had stood toe-to-toe with the most powerful beings in the known universe, unflinching, thriving, reveling in victory? She _had_ done that, hadn't she?

Even when they came to kill her specifically, right before _The Fall_, Asuka recalled grinning at the immediate prospect of melee combat as if she had just won the lottery. Afterwards, it was like someone had taken her true heart -that of a wolf's- and slowly, patiently, and methodically tamed it. That domesticated thing was no match for the unpredictably dangerous, powerful, and utterly psychotic Sixth Child.

Asuka Langley Sohryu was scared of Mariko Buick.

* * *

"Is…he okay?"

"Yukie, trust me, he's fine. He called me himself at lunch."

"Oh Asuka, thank_God_," Yukie exhaled, putting a hand over her heart in sincere relief. "I would've asked you earlier if you hadn't come in just before class. I could hardly think straight worrying."

Asuka paused from pushing the broom across the bare classroom floor to glance up at the class rep. She had cleanup duty with Yukie and three other students, who had completed their chores minutes ago. Asuka didn't mind not being the first out of the classroom. She got to talk the Yukie, who over the course of one night seemed to have become the friend that the raven-haired American claimed she had wanted to be to the Second Child…

Yes, Asuka made up her mind to stay here and do her chores right, and by right she meant slowly. Very slowly.

_God, I'm so pathetic…_

"What are you so worried about?" the red head scoffed, returning to her duties. "When was the last time you even talked to Shinji?"

"Last Friday," Yukie answered immediately as her sponge found the blackboard once more. "And before that, Wednesday, on that Tuesday, two Saturdays ago-" The young brunette must have felt Asuka's intense questioning glare between her shoulder blades, because half a moment later she elaborated.

"Asuka…I talk to Shinji because he's nice and unassuming. No arrogance, no pretense. You can just talk to him, about anything. Not that I tell him a whole lot, but I feel I could if I really wanted to. He's been through so much he just never wastes time passing judgment." Yukie turned momentarily to look at Asuka. "He never brought up the fact we were friends?"

"No." One word, spoken with a cold portent that must have seemed out of place coming from the intermittently boisterous and hotheaded German.

"Don't be mad, okay? It isn't like he came over my house or anything like that._Okay?_ You're always telling me to trust you, so trust me on this."

"Okay." Asuka didn't mean to sound accusatory. There were just things pulling at her mind at the moment…

"The reason I was most worried was you. I, wow, I looked at you and…and I thought he had _died_ or something. Do you know how hard it was to see that look on your face? No one should ever have that look on their face. I was scared for you. So was Aki."

"What did you two do after I left?" Asuka asked. She was putting the push-broom away and retrieving the mop.

"Aki called her brother-in-law and he picked us up. We didn't really feel like eating after you left."

The foreign teenager crossed her arms over the mop handle and nodded sagely. "It's settled then," she stated with lidded eyes. "I'll have to make him pay for ruining our night. I bet Shinji got a thrill out of me just sleeping in the same room, that pervert."

Yukie just snorted as she squeezed her sponge. "Whatever, Asuka. You're just looking for excuses to touch him. _You're_ the pervert."

Asuka leashed something acid on her tongue when she detected laughter in the class rep's voice. "Go to hell, Yukie."

"I'll take that as a yes. You damned pervert."

"Shut up."

"Pervert."

"Shut up."

"Pervert."

"Shut up."

"Pervert."

"Shut up."

"Gotta go, pervert," Yukie announced as she skipped to her satchel, openly enjoying the most childish exchange Asuka had participated in since she was five.

"Yukie."

Yukie Utsumi stopped in the doorway, cell phone in hand. "Yeah, pervert?"

"I don't have anything to do this weekend, so-"

"Make all the plans," Yukie happily interjected. "Whatever you want to do. You, me, Aki…and you, Curly."

"Why'd you just call me Curly?" Mariko asked as she side-stepped past the smiling brunette and into the classroom. "It'll be good to actually have fun on a weekend here, though."

"Should I call you at home?" Asuka asked when she finally peeled her gaze from the green-eyed teen to Yukie.

The departing young woman raised and shook her cell phone. "I'll let you two talk." Yukie waved, spared Asuka a last glance, then disappeared.

In the space of a few seconds Mariko had replaced their friend at the door. She noiselessly closed it, and noiselessly pivoted to face Asuka. Asuka noiselessly stood in the middle of the room gripping the mop handle. Noiselessly.

"You didn't have to wait for me."

"Now what kind of friend would I be if I let you go home all by yourself?" The taller girl rhetorically asked, smiling as she stepped away from the door, forward. "I saw somebody I knew outside, so I just talked with them to pass the time."

"You going to carry my books, too? Hold my hand while I cross the street and tell me not to stare at ugly people?" Asuka put the mop to work with a long, smooth stroke, more to help her studiously ignore the biting fear in her gut than to clean the floor. Mariko wouldn't try anything here, would she? They were alone in the room, but anyone could be on the other side of the door. No…Mariko just wanted to have a little talk. Asuka mopped faster.

Mariko just sighed diplomatically as she stepped closer. "Asuka, look, can we just drop this? Just finish up and come home, okay? I lived by myself for a year before I got here and I'm not about to start again. It nearly killed me. Shinji's probably home already."

"Whatever. Fine. I'm almost done." The Second Child turned to wash one corner of the room when a hand clutched her shoulder.

"I know what you're thinking," said the person that the hand belonged to. "And if I were in your shoes, I probably would've tried to do the same thing. I'd consider myself dangerous to be around."

"That makes two of us," Asuka deadpanned. "Get your hand off of me."

The hand was immediately removed. Before the hurt in Mariko's eyes fully registered to Asuka, the Sixth Child was walking toward the lone desk in the room that had not been ushered to one of the far walls –Asuka's desk- and sat on it. The lemon-ammonia began to sting.

"I've think you've got me wrong, Asuka."

"You mean you _didn't_ kill all those people?"

The other girl gave a short harsh laugh to Asuka's question, her long legs dangling on the edge of the desk. "You know…I was thinking about what to say to you when I finally got the chance. I thought, maybe I'd tell you about…how I was friends with lots of those people…really good friends." Mariko found something interesting on her knee. "Or maybe, I'd show you a picture of the little boy I had saved one day, when I had rushed him into the local hospital after getting bit by a rattlesnake."

Asuka found the strength to crush the rampant anxiety stampeding through her long enough to return the look Mariko gave her when the American looked up.

Mariko said, "Then I realized that after what you saw, no matter how much truth there was in it, I wouldn't be able to appeal to you emotionally." Mariko's stare sharpened perceptibly. "Asuka…I _can't_ kill you, because I kill on impulse, and even if I didn't, there is no way I could get away with it. You're too important."

"Do you really expect me to believe," Asuka began, "that you're just going to let go of the fact that I tried to turn you in?"

"Yeah."

Silence.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

Mariko winced, running a hand through her messy hair. "That…wasn't really the reaction I was expecting, you know? And why does there have to be something wrong with me?"

"Because if I was in your position, I would've killed me by now," Asuka stated, vainly attempting to ignore just how morbid that sounded coming out of her mouth. "A fight should be clean and elegant, without waste. Because second chances are the reason I have scars covering half of my body. I gotta say; for a cold-blooded murderer…you suck."

"Maybe I'm _not_ a cold-blooded murderer, Asuka," Mariko tersely suggested, "and maybe, just _maybe_, I want to earn your trust." The Second Child did well to keep her jaw from dropping from the shear audacity of Mariko's declaration.

Mariko had sensed her bewilderment, anyway, because a moment later the taller girl said, "I just wish you'd realize that you don't need a degree in psychology…or _exorcism_ to help me. It's enough to try to believe in me, to know one day you'll just see me as a good person. One day I'm going to put this all behind me, and that day will be here a whole lot faster with your help, Asuka."

"An impulsive killer is still a killer So it's still not like I have a choice, is it?" Asuka ventured.

"No," Mariko whispered softly, streaming sunlight reflecting off her gentle smile, "you don't. I'm sorry." She cast her eyes upward. "Clean and elegant, without waste…I _like_ that. You come up with it?"

"Of course I did. Asuka Langley Sohryu is if nothing else, an original."

Something about Asuka's last words tweaked the corners of the Sixth Child's mouth, bending but not breaking her melancholy smile. Soon the smile was accompanied by something akin to admiration swimming in Mariko's eyes. "If Kaji was half as confident as you, no wonder you liked him. You know, Shinji…"

Mariko continued to speak, but Asuka was no longer listening, or thinking or seeing straight, for that matter.

* * *

Maya followed Commander Fuyutski's order to go home the night before. At the moment, leisurely patrolling the sci-fi/ fantasy aisle of Maruzen-nishi in the heart of the Geofront's book district, she was thankful, oh so thankful, that he did not order her to _stay_ home. She couldn't stay there anymore than she could breathe pure methane, because there was nothing to do there, nothing but sit and stew and let every single thing in her small town home remind her of her failings.

There were so many things to do out here Maya was almost afraid she wouldn't be able to concentrate on what she wanted most at the moment; that was to be a gigantic shameless nerd. This was a simple two step process.

Step one was to find geek-approved reading material. Suzuki. Ito. Card. Takami. Gaiman. Pratchett…Gaiman _and_ Pratchett!

Plucking the glossy paperback copy of _Good_ _Omens_ from its brothers, she proceeded to step two; finding a quiet, secluded corner in this forest of paper and wood, coffee and soft contemporary jazz, and becoming invisible. Maya found a cozy nook, and after another minute of discreet searching found a short padded stool already doing what she planned to…sitting.

Almost imperceptibly she quickened her pace, then faster, and then threw away all pretense of casualness, running the last five meters to claim her cushy prize.

Maya ignored the confused, open stares thrown at her by Maruzen-nishi patrons and employees. She was already an oddity to scores of Nerv staff members, what's a few more people?

If there was anything Maya was naturally good at, it was setting and accomplishing short-term goals. She hunkered down and set to accomplish one right now, and not think about faulty cores, or flying off the handle to superiors, or why Asuka could never get along with another female pilot for five freakin' seconds, or the incredible shrinking confidence of Sachiko Fujiyama, who was standing over her right now.

_I turned off_ "-my cell phone. How'd you-" _find me?_

"Ma'am…you said you always came here when you needed to cheer up, or lose yourself. So I guessed, and…and I guessed right. I guess." The taller, younger woman shrugged, obviously thinking she was intruding on her sempai's alone time.

Maya looked down at the little book in her hands and ran a thumb across the pages. "No, you guessed right," she said softly. "I'm surprised you remember that. And don't look so embarrassed. If I really wanted to be alone I would've just stayed home. You have something to say. I know. Just say it."

"I found something."

As her head swiveled upward her eyes locked on Sachiko's, a pair of coal irises hardly containing triumphant glee.

"About…you think you know-"

"It's the answer, sempai, I _know_ it." Sachiko said as she stood tall and straight, smiling to the point of arrogantly smirking. _There she is. This is the woman I recruited from NTI._ "Dr. Ibuki, we need to go someplace else."

Maya was the one shrugging now. "Well not really. We don't have to. Just tell me right here."

"Are…are you sure?" Lieutenant Fujiyama hesitantly asked, taken aback by her superior's nonchalance.

"Why not? No one here's going to understand what you're saying anyway. And it's no secret that you and I WORK FOR _NERV_!" Two particularly nosy browsers reared back in shock at the completely random and unwarranted outburst. They hastily turned away before their blushes swallowed their faces. Maya favored their retreating backs with a satisfied grin before turning back to her understudy, who stood ashen faced, mouth agape and utterly appalled.

"What?" the good doctor asked. "We're alone now, aren't we?"

"I-I just thought you were, I assumed…why did you just do that?"

"Because, Sachiko, I_felt_ like it."

"But it's just that...I just never expected…you're always so _nice_-"

"I'm _still_ nice, you know better than that. But I can't be like I was before. There are things that happened to me and I'll never be the same ever again, and I can't decide if I care anymore. I'm good at my job, and that's good enough for now. You understand?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Don't call me 'ma'am' anymore. I'm Maya, and we're friends."

They shared a look, and Ibuki could tell right there a true bond was finally being formed between her and her future replacement.

"Now give me the goods, Sachiko."

"Okay, Maya."

Perhaps all she had _was_ her job, but she was dealing with her problems the best she knew how…

…much, _much_ better than the Second Child was currently dealing with her own.

* * *

"Why did you just hit me?" Shinji asked as he stood in the kitchen, his cool detachment serving only to infuriate Asuka further.

"If you're that damn calm, then you probably know why!" She shouted back as she stood at the threshold of the cooking space. She had not even bothered to take off her shoes, so she stood in them, tense and on her toes, shaking.

Mariko looked on behind her as if watching a train wreck unfold. "I'm sorry, Shinji. We were talking, and Kaji…it slipped out. I'm _sorry_-"

"It's okay," he said to the American girl. "You were just talking. Things like this happen-"

"It's _not_ okay," Asuka corrected him, "and don't talk to her like I'm not here, asshole." Her voice, light and dynamic during all but the direst of personal crises, was dead and smoldering now.

"All I did was tell her Kaji _existed_, okay? What's wrong with her knowing that? We're all friends here, aren't we?"

"Should I just leave?" Mariko timidly offered. "I'll give you two time to work this out."

Asuka wheeled and fixed Mariko with a stare that was inexplicably wild and focused. "_NO_. You stay. You want to know so badly what things are really like here? Then you keep your lanky ass right there. After all," She spun back to venomously glare at the young, bleeding man, "we're all_friends_ here, aren't we, Shinji?"

After he dabbed his lip with a napkin he responded. "You say that like it's such a horrible thing. We're so far away from being friends that you joke about it?"

"DON'T TURN THIS BACK ON ME!" Asuka screamed. "WE BARELY TALK ABOUT THIS SHIT WITH EACHOTHER, WHY WOULD I WANT YOU TELLING _HER_?" She was seething through clenched teeth now. Her head was throbbing, and so did her eye and her arm. She felt dizzy. She didn't care. "I can't believe you took her to see Misato. Your note didn't say she was coming with you. You barely _know_ Mariko."

"I didn't take her. She asked, and she came with me." For the slightest moment his eyes tightened. "And I know her better than I know you."

That…_hurt_. His last words had been spoken with a naked truth that pressed against her heart. Why, why was he so calm? Wasn't he upset?

"Shut the fuck _up_. This cool man act doesn't fool someone who's seen you curled in a fetal position. You'd piss your pants if I told her about Kaworu."

"I told her about Kaworu. And I stopped peeing my pants when I was seven."

"Are you two _sure_ you don't want me to leave?"

"You told Mariko about Misato, Shinji? How about the shit that hurts to even think about? How about how she died, did you tell her that? How about your_father_?"

"Why do you care, Asuka?"

"I _don't_ care," she lied. "You know that what I care about is that you think you have a right to tell her _anything_ about me!"

"Why can't I tell her anything? Why do you have a problem with her?" he asked, and Asuka inwardly cursed at giving Shinji an out. "Did she tell you what she's done? Is that why you hate her?"

Her blood ran cold at the implications…and she made damned sure not to turn around. "I don't hate her. You…you know?"

Shinji Ikari shook his head. "No, but if she did, and it _was_ terrible, I probably still would forgive her, maybe if she deserved to die-"

The Second Child's next words had somehow worked its way around the snarl that grew in the back of her throat. "_YOU_. Don't have the right to forgive _anyone_. BITCH." She raised a rigid, accusing finger and stabbed in his direction. It shook, as did her raw voice.

"You know what, Shinji? Maybe you forgot you're the son of the WORST MURDERER in history, but I didn't. Maybe _you_ forgot you could've changed the _world_ and you _choked_. I _didn't_. Maybe you forgot who the little COWARD was that left me to DIE, who gave up on _me_. But I. DIDN'T. _You_ are the last person on Earth to be forgiving _anyone_."

"Who am I waiting for then, Asuka? The second-to-last person? Is that you?"

And that was when Asuka temporarily lost her mind.

Be it from quick reflexes, or the ghost of his synchronization training with the Second Child, Shinji Ikari dodged the chair hurled by the berserk teenager. Asuka felt nothing external in her haze, and didn't at first realize she was being restrained by Mariko, who had gone silent as the argument turned more vicious.

"I _HATE_ YOU! I HATE YOU, SHINJI! YOU THINK YOU CAN JUDGE ME? YOU LEFT ME TO DIE AND YOU THINK I'D FORGET? _FUCK YOU!_"

Asuka tried kicking and twisting out of Mariko's grip, and she succeeded only in losing her balance and pulling the other girl off her feet. They teetered forward and then tumbled backwards, a tangle of arms and legs. From her perspective on the carpet, Asuka now found the object of her severe ire at the front door slipping into his sneakers and plucking his wallet from a shelf, actions that did nothing to placate the Second Child.

"GET BACK HERE!" She pulled herself off of Mariko's lap and into a sitting position. Shinji did not obey her command. He was still moving. He wasn't listening.

She wasn't finished.

"You know why you're worse than your father, Shinji?"

He kept moving, digging into his pockets, pulling his cell phone from one and then replacing it. The frustration burned in her chest and was beginning to choke off her words.

"No matter how shitty he acted, no matter what he did to us, he _never_ hid behind apologies! That bastard never looked for forgiveness. You could trust him to be rotten. He never pretended to be a good person unlike _YOU_!"

He hesitated, but only at the coat rack, and when he recognized his light jacket he pulled it off its hook and smoothly over his still shoulders. Shinji disappeared from view as he approached the front door.

"HE _NEVER_ RAN AWAY!"

The door opened.

"I promise, one day, you're going to walk out that door and when you come back, I won't be here. One day soon, Shinji. I _promise_ you."

The door closed.

Asuka continued to draw shivering, angry breaths and stare at the place the young man had occupied moments before.

"Um…Asuka, do you think you could get your elbow off my pelvis?" Mariko tentatively wheezed as she slowly propped herself up on her elbows. "Please?"

Asuka's breathing evened as she obliged, not bothering to look at Mariko. Then Second Child wrapped her arms around, and buried her head between her knees as she drew them to her chest. The German teenager closed her blue eyes.

Mariko was saying something. "I'm probably the last person you want to hear from, and Shinji's probably the last person you want me bringing up. But I have to vouch for the guy, Asuka…I asked to go with him and," Asuka heard the girl lick her lips, "if you knew how much…_guilt_ he's been keeping to himself, you wouldn't stay mad for long. Be pissed, Asuka, but I think you should know _that_ and other things. He wants to tell you, but he's afraid. I can tell you. He won't mind if I tell you."

"How do you know that?" Asuka finally asked, the fire in her voice all but quenched.

"Because. I saw the real him," was the immediate answer.

"So did _I_, Mariko, just now," said Asuka, her voice bitter and undoubtedly muffled in her lap. "and the real Shinji just _ran away_. Again." She coiled her arms and screwed her eyes shut tighter. "He ran away. He left just like Kaji, and Hikari…and ma-"

A soft palm had quickly but gently slid over Asuka's mouth before she could finish. It was wetted with a warm tear that found its way from a closed blue eye.

"Why do you think I take so many pictures? That way, no one ever leaves me." Mariko's voice was closer as the green-eyed teenager spoke those last words. Arms enveloped Asuka from behind, the power they could conjure dormant. The Second Child felt herself completely and utterly relax. Just for these few moments, it would be okay, she could pretend.

"Why is everyone here in so much pain?" Mariko quietly wondered.

Asuka didn't know. It didn't matter at the moment anyway, because mama always had such warm arms…

End of Development

A/N: _ITDR_, for a supposed horror story, does not have much gore. The problem, I believe, is that my story suffers from **Amelie Syndrome**.

What is Amelie Syndrome, you ask? You must first be familiar with the movie after which the disorder is named.

_Amelie_, if you are not aware, is the sweetest, kindest R-rated film ever released in the United States (yes, I know it is a French film). So why would a movie -that revolves around a beautiful twenty-three year-old waif that makes it her goal in life to bring joy to every single person around her- be rated R? Apparently, twenty seconds of not-so-explicit (and tastefully directed) sex was enough to sink the remaining two hours, eight minutes and forty seconds of PG-rated material.

I'm not saying _ITDR_ has that little violence in it. There are still five more chapters, it involves a serial killer, and it takes place in the Evangelion universe. Just how happy of an ending could this story possibly have?

Perhaps I missed the 'Darkfic' label when I posted the first chapter? _Is_ there a 'Darkfic' label? I don't know, and as of this writing it is…3:48 AM here on the east coast (my pen name's MidnightCereal, what did you expect?), so I don't feel like looking.

Random A/N:

Reader: Why do you have to answer every damn question posed? Are you really that sensitive?

MC: No, but for some reason I stay on top of things like this. Perhaps I just appreciate that some people like my story. It's like we're all connected, you know? It's like that wireless network commercial, where there's maybe 25 million people sitting at this dinner table, and this one kid says, 'Can someone pass the peas?'. _Pffbt_…bitch, get your _own_ damn peas.

Thank you for reading and your criticism. Ja.

Next Chapter: Aperture


	10. Aperture

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is a Studio Gainax production, its characters created by Hideaki Anno. They say the word, and this story ceases to exist.

It is a sad commentary on the life of Asuka Langley Sohryu that Mariko Buick is not the worst thing to have ever happened to her…

In the Dark Room: Aperture

By MidnightCereal

Misato Katsuragi had taken Shinji to this rocky outcropping overlooking Tokyo-3 on his second day in the fortress city. For the first time in three years one of them had returned. Below him and far beyond, the land quickly sloped into a low-lying miasma of orange dusk and ozone, sinking until it met the lip of Memorial Crater.

It was entirely possible from the perspective offered to the young man to peer at the impenetrable forestscape below and across the vast excavation reaming the ancient, cavernous valley, and imagine the area being entirely void of human population. That fantasy would be supplemented by the quiet at the overlook, as the sounds from the homes below and living city _far_ below overlapped, aggregated, or diffused.

It was the perfect place for a phone call.

Pulling his eyes away from the vista, he sighed and reached into his pocket. His contact list was woefully sparse, and it only took Shinji a moment to find the right number. He had dialed it –or at least began to dial it- on numerous instances. He had never, not once in two years, completed the call.

His youthful face, a seamless amalgam of the hard lines of his father's and the softness of his mother's, was set in a rigid mask that would have broken Misato's heart and given his current guardian pause. That look remained as the phone rang on the other end. A new sound replaced the dial tone.

"Yeah, who is it?" A young girl's voice, light and heedless of formality.

"Hi, Mari," Shinji started, "you probably don't remem-"

"Oh. My. _God_. Don't hang…h-hold on!" Over the connection there was a muffled trampling and distant but distinct voices bouncing off imagined walls. Then a shout and shuffling. Once more a voice came into aural focus, and this time it was not Mari's.

"_Shinji?_ Shinji, man, is that you?"

"Yeah."

"Where the hell have you _been_, man? I thought you _died_ or something!"

There was a silence between the two for a span of seconds.

"Shinji…you know how long it's been?"

"Yeah."

"Who the hell do you think you are?"

* * *

Dr. Maya Ibuki stalked toward the main Nerv mess hall. She wasn't wearing her lab coat or a skirt or business slacks. Beige cargo pants hugged her hips and black canvas soles were the only thing separating her bare feet from the cold gunmetal grey of the floor. Nor was she holding or browsing technical papers. But after talking with Sachiko, and then leaving Maruzen-nishi for Central Dogma to confirm her protégé's suspicions, Maya was more than prepared for what she was about to do.

Everything she needed to know, Sachiko told her:

"_Maya…the core data that was used during the accident wasn't the set intended for the test."_

"_Please tell me which data set was used in the experiment, then."_

"_Well, last night I began a core sim using RNC before I realized that I had imposed the wrong initial conditions. I think I was getting tired, because when I restarted the simulation, I realized I had also loaded core schematics from three weeks ago by mistake."_

"_But that in itself shouldn't have prevented a normal sim run, Sachiko."_

"_Not if it's the same data set. I found that out when I switched the three week-old data set with the one we actually used. When I compared the two, activated all pathways, I found out that in the newest rewrite, at over seventy percent synchronization, the entry plug filtration loop is shorted-"_

"_WHAT?"_

"_That feature wasn't in the old core, Maya. Someone designed it, put it in the final test version"_

"_I don't understand. If that was the case, then LCL purity should've gone to hell during the simulations you were running, too."_

"_I thought about that. You know it's the Magi that control and record all processes, definitely the processes during the accident on Sunday. If someone really wanted to, if they had access, they could load the old working core into RNC when we were trying to run a sim to find out what went wrong. Without us even knowing."_

"_Someone…someone tried to kill Shinji."_

"_Sempai, listen, please. To save time last night, I ran RNC with the faulty rewrite using Balthazar and my laptop for different conditions. My computer isn't connected with the Magi, so guess what happened when I ran the program on it?" _

"_LCL contamination at seventy percent…and Balthazar finished the run and reported no errors. They tried to poison him…like a rat."_

"_All I needed to do was find out how they cut our ability to sever the synch connection. I checked the Magi's ghost log to see if anyone other than you had accessed-"_

"_You did what?"_

"_I-I…it was the only way to find out who it was-"_

"_You know you don't have clearance to directly access the Magi."_

"_I know. I'm sorry, Maya...sempai."_

"…_I didn't say stop."_

"_I…oh…okay. You're not upset?"_

"_Nah. I'm surprised you remembered, that's all, Sachiko. I only told you about it once. So what did you find out?"_

"_I went to look at the entry and exit times, and PINs that were used, and just accepted that it might take a while to find something. I ended up just writing one PIN down. Whoever it was, they had a level seven clearance, or at least the PIN of someone with a level seven clearance. How many people have that kind of power here?"_

"_Four."_

"_I have to tell you, sempai, whoever it was, they weren't trying very hard to cover their tracks. I'm sure they didn't know about the ghost log, but changing the design of an Evangelion core? Using an authentic Nerv PIN? They knew they were probably going to get caught."_

"_Sachiko, the goal was to kill him, nothing else. Shinji's not the most famous person in the world, but many of those in the know see him as the greatest hero that ever lived. I've seen people debate that claim until their faces turned blue, but when someone like him is murdered, there's going to be questions."_

And Maya was going to get her answers. Now.

The current head of Project Eva reached the threshold of the cafeteria, exhaled, stepped through, and carefully and thoroughly scanned the near and far walls. She tuned out the closed circuit television above and to the right of her, incessantly blaring banal reminders for employees to wash their hands after eating, to bus their own trays, a warm welcome to the new Operations Planning Manager of the Hamburg Branch; Yoroshiku, Captain Kohl and _now_ she was tuning it out…

Maya deliberately turned her focus from the edges to the middle of the large room. As hungry Nerv scientists, technicians, and engineers brushed past her to satiate their appetite, she studied the faces at each bench. Even with her blurred vision she could tell most were smiling, happily chatting and laughing with their fellow coworkers.

Was the mess hall always like this? Was it always awash with a vitality that was so woefully, painfully absent during the war that Maya vividly remembered hearing Aoba scrape the last of the peach cobbler from the bottom of the food tray from all the way across the…

There he was.

Maya had no more time to waste, so the Fukuoka Prefecture native began to make her way towards him, turning sideways to wade through the sitting, eating, socializing cafeteria patrons. "Dr. Ibuki! Hi!" someone, a woman, shouted over the concussive din. Maya pretended she did not hear as she pushed forward.

She broke through and arrived at an island of solitude, the object of her attention sitting alone, seemingly unaware of his spectator as he took another bite of his turkey sandwich. It wasn't until the doctor was standing over his left shoulder and breathing down his neck that the man paused.

He mechanically laid his half-eaten meal down on his paper bag, wiped his hands on a napkin, deliberately cleared his throat, and then formally acknowledged her. "Hi, Maya. Is there something I can do for you?"

Maya Ibuki then gave the most beatific, sinfully impish, heart-stopping bridge bunny smile she had manufactured since the age of sixteen…right before her fist crashed into Makoto Hyuga's jaw. He rocked back and unceremoniously keeled over, Maya's forward momentum carrying her past him.

The woman caught herself and then rose. Hyuga was still moving, craggily pulling himself back to his seat as he readjusted his crooked frames. Maya wasn't smiling anymore, and she noted absently that no one in the room was talking, either.

"I take it you know. Don't you?" Hyuga asked as he rubbed his sore jaw.

Maya raised a quaking, throbbing fist, and with a control she honestly did not realize she still possessed, lowered it. "You think you're the only one that lost something, Hyuga? We all could've died a _dozen_ times over and Shinji saved us, he _saved_ us EVERYTIME! What were _you_ doing while he was out there fighting for everyone? What were _you_ doing when his father and the committee and those _things_ were CRUSHING HIM? It was _your_ fault as much as it was ANYONE ELSE'S. EVERYONE sat back and let him fall."

She leaned in until their noses were almost touching. Hyuga unflinchingly returned Maya's stare, defiant and unapologetic.

"And you know what else, you angry, sorry little…_bitch_?" The irate woman asked, the volume of her shaking voice carrying her words to a captive audience stunned by the violence of her actions and speech. "It was MISATO'S fault, too, and when she died, she knew that. She had used him just like we all did, and when he finally collapsed –like a HUMAN BEING, Hyuga- she paid for it. You should've just accepted it."

"I did it for her." At his whispered declaration she reared back and laughed, much to the man's consternation and the profound, tangible disquiet of everyone witnessing the confrontation.

"Oh, Hyuga," she began after regaining her composure, "you lie like you _fuck_. If Misato knew what you tried to do, you think she would thank you for avenging her? Or would she _shoot_ and _stab_ you?"

"Um…excuse me…Dr. Ibuki?"

She turned around, and looked up. Though his eyes were hidden behind black reflective shades, Maya could tell the security agent addressing her was thoroughly shell-shocked. "Did you just get here, Mr.…"

"Choi. I've been here…" Something awkward passed over his square face. "…long enough. Can I just do my job? Please?"

As Maya Ibuki stepped aside to give him access to her stoic former coworker, she smiled slightly at the agent, doing nothing to quell the unease reflected in his countenance. At the (much) larger man's behest Hyuga stood, turning a cold eye to Maya as he started toward the mess hall entrance.

"We all dealt with what happened different ways, Maya," he said, shrugging awkwardly as agent Choi's giant mitt squeezed the crook of his skinny arm. "Take you for example. Why would you recruit a new Child when we have two seasoned ones already on the roster?"

"You tell me, Hyuga._Humor_ me."

"I'm not the only one who wants to get rid of an Eva pilot."

"Nice try, except that it was _you_ who suggested we add Mariko to the roster in the first place, Mr. Operations Planning Manager…and the only thing I want to get rid of is _you_."

Hyuga smiled. Maya wished it would disappear, and it did when he turned forward, towards the gaggle of spectators parting to let the jailor and his captor through.

For the first time, Maya realized Sachiko was behind her, doing her absolute best to avoid eye contact.

She realized that at the front of the dining hall two more agents were waiting for Makoto Hyuga, and somehow they were even bigger than Agent Choi.

She realized that she had just told a roomful of people she hardly knew and hardly liked, that she had sex with Hyuga, in an effort to discredit his rationale.

She realized Hyuga was right.

* * *

"Asuka, you know what the most messed up thing about this is?" Mariko asked, joining the Second Child on the sofa.

"No, Mariko. What is the _most_ messed up thing about this?" Asuka queried. Her elbow supported her head on the furniture's arm rest. She was looking forward, eyes half-lidded as something happy and stupid filled the corners of the television, indiscriminate of her hopelessly sour disposition.

"The most messed up thing is that the entire argument began because of me, and he's the one that caught it. And you're talking to me right now."

"I can do something about that. Teller doesn't have anything on me, Yankee."

Mariko paused in opening the soda can in her hand. "Wait, what…I don't get it. Who?"

Asuka fought to suppress a deep sigh. And failed. "Never _mind_. If I was going to stop talking I would've done it a few hours ago. I need to do _something_."

Maiko nodded as she faced forward, tapping the can with the tip of a finger. "So…are you really leaving, Asuka?"

The German teenager sighed again, a drawn-out breath measured against the metronomic clack of Mariko's fingernail against the aluminum container. At the twenty-fourth click, Asuka said, "Maybe."

The Second Child looked out the corner of her eye, and saw something unpleasant etched into Mariko's frozen profile. "You don't think I'll leave?" the red head asked.

"I don't think you'll leave him with me, because you know what I could do to him," Mariko responded evenly.

"You said you were trying to get better. You said that, didn't you?"

"Yeah, with _your_ help. You said you would."

_Of course I did_, Asuka thought, mentally rolling her eyes. Maya was supposed to have found out later in the week, but sitting at Shinji's bedside Sunday night it had all blown up in Asuka's face. Now Mariko was on to her, and Asuka was not about to do anything to let the taller girl know she was considering anything else.

In her own words Mariko had called herself sick. Killing people the way she did was a psychological disorder. If that was true, that the green-eyed American was compelled to do those things, then Asuka had no choice but to humor the lunatic. She had no choice but to keep close, to watch the Sixth Child for any hint, any sign that she was about to turn into the thing that butchered all those people.

Or she could just kill Mariko.

As possible, as necessary as the action might be in the future, the last thought left Asuka feeling decidedly ill. The Second Child had killed before, just before Third Impact, but she knew instinctively the difference between sitting behind a thousand layers of armor and ending lives to defend herself, and effectively executing the young woman sitting to her left, currently rubbing her eyes like a sleep-addled toddler.

_I would be defending myself_, thought the German teenager_. The only good defense is a good offense._

What to do, though, when Mariko Buick is found with no pulse, having sustained mortal injuries? What to do when Section Two ransacks the deceased's room and comes away only with the facts that in life, the Sixth Child had been a prolific shutterbug and had a crush on Shinji Ikari?

What happens when investigators weigh Asuka's word against zero evidence to support her claim, a corpse, a lifetime of mental and physical trauma, a notoriously antagonistic personality, extensive military and martial arts training, and a recent history of psychiatric therapy? Suddenly, a new thought came to the Second Child.

_I am fucked. _

"Mariko…it would be so much easier to help if I knew what it was that-"

"That what? That made me just up and…do what I did?"

Asuka drank a sip of her old pride when she did not wilt under Mariko's stare. "And then take pictures of them."

The black-haired teen looked down at her drink, still tapping the metal top. Then she shook her head solemnly. "I can't tell you that. I'm sorry. If I told you…I'd have to kill you."

To both of the teen's surprise, Asuka chuckled before she said, "That's the first time, and I mean _ever_, that someone's said that to me and was absolutely serious."

"Well…it's true. If you want to be safe Asuka, just don't…" And here Mariko paused suddenly as she stared forward. She wasn't tapping the can anymore.

In fact, all motion on Mariko's part had ceased. The ubiquitous, ceaseless vitality Asuka associated with the short-haired girl drained from her face, imperceptibly at first, and then completely evaporated. In its stead was a mask of stone, the very antithesis of life, and as Asuka grew exponentially more nervous with each passing second, her greatest fear became the prospect of that mask turning to her…

But it didn't, and as if someone had depressed a restart button between her shoulder blades, the whole of Mariko Buick came back online. "…just don't talk to me about what you wouldn't want me talking to _you_ about. Does that make sense?"

Asuka nodded awkwardly with her head perched in her palm. "It does."

Mariko continued tapping the can as if she had never stopped, and Asuka's palpable anxiety began to fade. Slowly. "Mariko, it's _that_ bad?"

"That's why I just laugh at you when you get angry and yell at Shinji, you know?" Mariko admitted, chuckling at the moment she spoke those words. "When we spoke the other day I knew he was telling me the truth. You guys here, you all just went through so much…shit. And you went through it together. And now that it's all over, what do you do? You bitch." Mariko used her free hand to mimic a gabbing mouth. "Bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch-"

"_Okay_. I get it."

"I know you do, which is why it's so weird to me that you don't just _forgive_ him, already. You live with him. You work with him. You go to school, you eat with him. I'm just saying, if I ever get better, I'm sure as hell not looking to pick a fight with the most important person in my life."

"The thing you need to understand, Mariko, is that our problems were never really the Angels. It wasn't the Eva's. It wasn't Third Impact, so our issues didn't end with those things. The guys at Nerv back then, me and Shinji and Misato, we turned into a…family. We were one big fucked-up dysfunctional family."

Asuka Langley Sohryu blew out a breath, surprised by its shakiness. "The ones that lived still are, to an extent. That's the only way we know how to function. That's why I can't forgive Shinji. I…" Another shaky breath. "I don't know any other way. I tried convincing myself that we were working toward some type of connection."

"And you're not?" The question was soft and inviting. It held the infinite compassion of a mother.

Asuka shook her head. "I don't know who he is now anymore than I knew who he was before."

"He thinks you're beautiful."

The dour expression dominating the Second Child's face was no match for the shocked one pushing its way to the surface. "_What?_"

"His favorite thing in the world is cooking for you. Sometimes, when you two rent a movie, you fall asleep on the couch. He thinks about kissing you then."

Asuka involuntarily flushed at the thought of the young man watching her in her sleep, hovering over her as he knelt closer…

"You're making this up."

"Nope."

"That's _not_ funny."

"I'm _not_ laughing."

"Why would he tell you something like that?"

"_Because_, Asuka, he's got to tell someone. And _you're_ not listening. Think about all the terrible things you know I've done. That didn't stop you from telling me about your dysfunctional family, about trying to connect with Shinji, now did it? _Everybody_ has to tell somebody."

Now sitting up and regarding the waxing teenager, Asuka fumbled for a suitable response. "Why…_how_ are you so damned good at getting people to talk to you?"

Mariko shrugged. "Necessity. And practice. If I couldn't be around people or talk to them, if I was…denied the privilege of connecting, I don't know _what_ I'd do. I'd probably go crazy."

Asuka stared wide-eyed at the girl despite her fatigue, and then did the worst thing possible.

She laughed.

* * *

"He's talking," Agent Choi confessed to Maya Ibuki as he stood in front of her shut office door. Commander Fuyutski stood off at the side, visibly pensive. "He had help from two senior engineers and an upper level technician in Central Dogma."

Maya half sat, half leaned against her desk as she slowly shook her head in her palms. She pulled at her skin as she dragged her fingertips down her face, and when they passed her frowning mouth she spoke. "Can you tell me who the tech was?"

"Koshin Heya. He's been with Nerv-"

"For four years," Maya finished for the man. She knew Koshin, had talked to him just a week ago. They had played on the same softball team during this year's Tech Division One picnic. She had stopped just short of asking Koshin about his daughter, who had been a Nerv entry level intelligence officer before Maya remembered…"Are you sure those are the only people involved?"

The large man furrowed his brows. "No, ma'am. We are questioning the four now and have confiscated their computers and seized all of their communication logs. We hope that after reviewing those and their cell phone conversations we can determine if anyone else was responsible. Until we know for sure, I would advise activating the electronic safeties on all firearms outside the premises. That implies freezing further pilot-related activity to keep the Children off campus."

"Agreed," Fuyutski and Maya said in unison.

"Thank you for your cooperation. I-" Choi froze in mid-sentence and touched his earpiece. He nodded and then turned his attention to Maya. "Dr. Ibuki, the Third Child is here."

* * *

"It doesn't surprise me. In a way, I could always depend on Hyuga. No matter what happened, he would always hate me. And he was honest about it. Would it sound weird if I said I appreciated that?"

Maya took her time in answering Shinji as they sat alone, the last remnants of sunlight blanketed by the arriving night. The pyramid loomed before them in the cool shadows, and Maya shifted in her seat as she looked at it and mulled. "I'm guessing if I take this long to tell you what I think, it probably means that deep down, no. It's not weird. At least I don't think so."

She eyed him in the composite failing sunlight and the dim glow of the lampposts sparking to life. "You're taking this awfully well, Shinji."

He shrugged as his head dropped below his shoulders. "I have other things on my mind."

"Is that why you're here? Is that why you wanted to see me?"

"Yeah."

Recalling the blatant hostility displayed when she had walked into his infirmary suite the day before, Maya gathered a suspicion. "Are things okay at home? How are _you_ getting along with Mariko?"

His head came up and he barked a short, short laugh. Maya frowned slightly as the sound was not a pleasant thing to behold. "Mariko? You know what? I think about –when I look at her and hear her- how things might have turned out if she was the one that had come to live with me and Misato instead-"

"Shinji!"

"I know…that's not a very nice thing to say. But the _truth_ is that the picture I get in my head when I think about that situation is never a bad one." He rubbed his hands together as Maya looked on, dismayed by the note of discord coloring his otherwise placid tone. "I swear Asuka can sense what I'm thinking, because it's been…she just doesn't like Mariko. And she takes it out on me."

"Do you think Mariko should find some other place to stay?"

Maya tracked him as he pulled himself upright and then rested his head on the back of the bench, his eyes looking through the Geofront and the crater, into the sky beyond and the points of light in it.

"You would think that would solve some things because Asuka was against us giving her Misato's room," he said, "but that's not…her staying with us just exposed problems that were already there. Even some things we thought we solved. But nothing's changed, not really. I still don't understand her"

Maya had nothing to say to this, so she sighed and returned her gaze to the pyramid.

"I think Asuka's going to leave."

At this the young doctor could not hide her profound dismay. _No…not like this. Was I hoping for this? Why? _

"…Shinji?"

"Yeah?"

_I can't let this happen. This was my fault, the moment I read Mariko's profile…._

"Maybe…maybe I can help. Let me help. Please."

Confusion passed over his dour face before he nodded.

* * *

"What's the first thing I feel when I think of Shinji?"

From her spot on the couch, the Sixth Child tilted her head and cast her eyes upward before she looked at Asuka and said, "You want _me_ to tell_you_?"

"Yes."

"Hmm…can I say horny?"

"You _could_…and then I would laugh, and hit you with something large."

"I don't like getting hit with large objects. What if I say…anger?"

"I'd say you have a future in the therapy business. Or psychic. Whichever comes first."

"Psychic comes first, Asuka. I would think so." The green-eyed seventeen year-old tapped the empty can she held. "You don't like it that way, do you?"

"I don't think about it in terms of like and dislike, because that's the way it's always been, ever since I first met that dork. I-I look at him, and…I just feel frustrated, and he opens his mouth and says something…and I just want to kick him in the nuts!"

Mariko's studious expression was replaced by a sardonic grin. "Well…maybe he would talk _more_ to you if he was certain you weren't going to totally ruin his prospect of having children if he says the wrong thing."

"I don't know, Mariko," Asuka said, brow creasing. "That's a _lot_ to ask for."

Mariko giggled, and opened her mouth to respond, before suddenly sobering and turning her focus to something over Asuka's shoulder. Someone.

Asuka faced front, knowing full well who Mariko was looking at.

"Hi, Mariko."

That wasn't Shinji's voice.

"Hi, Maya," Mariko said back, her neck craning to see something else that caught her attention. Someone else. "Hey, Shinji."

"Hi, Mariko," Shinji said back.

Asuka remained facing forward. She felt the air shift as Maya glided to her side, and an awkward silence fell over the group. Maya was probably waiting for her charge to make eye contact. With none forthcoming, Asuka heard the woman give a tired sigh and say, "So, Mariko, how are you two doing?"

"Fine," she replied cheerfully, "just passing time with some homework, homemade pizza, just talking, a little TV, you know?" Asuka's peripheral vision tracked Mariko as the Sixth Child tracked the young man venturing to his room. Try as she might, the German could not subdue a rampant, burgeoning jealously that suddenly seized her gut; she clenched her teeth and remained silent. "What's laughing boy doing?"

"If you mean Shinji," Asuka heard Maya suck in a tenuous breath, "he's getting some of his things."

Mariko's sinking shoulders exactly matched the feeling that replaced envy in Asuka's troubled heart.

"Why?" Mariko asked.

"We…I mean he and I…came to the decision that maybe it would be best if he got away from here for a few days."

_It would be best if he got away from me?_

Asuka was numb now. "How long is a few days?" she heard Mariko ask after a full minute.

"Until next week. I have an extra room, so he's staying with me." Maya paused for some reason. "You don't mind if I take him away from you, do you?"

That wasn't directed at Mariko, who was leaning over to Asuka conspiratorially. "Asuka," she said in a near whisper, "say something."

"No, that's alright, Mariko. She doesn't have to say anything."

There was a new commotion that stole Mariko's attention for a moment. She quickly turned back. "Asuka, _c'mon_. He's right here." She _was_ whispering now. "Talk to him. Say _anything_. He wants you to._Trust_ me."

"I'm ready, Maya."

"That was fast, Shinji. Are you sure you have everything?"

"Asuka? Asuka? C'mon….you were just-"

"I'm sure. I've always been a fast packer."

"Let's get out of here, then. I'm pretty tired. Bye, Mariko."

"I'll see you at school, Mariko."

"Bye, Maya…Asuka, you _know_ you want to say something…"

"You two won't have to go into Nerv for the rest of the week. Just thought I should tell you now. I'll fill you in on the details soon."

"Okay. Asuka…_talk_."

"I'll see you at school."

"Asuka -goodnight, Shinji, see you tomorrow- Asuka, he's _leaving_…"

And then Maya and Shinji were gone. All that was left was Mariko, Asuka, and the silence.

After five minutes, the third thing, which was as thick as it was tenuous, was broken.

"Asuka, why didn't you just-"

"Don't."

"Why didn't you believe me?"

"Shut up."

"You and him want the same thing, it's so obvi-"

"I said SHUT UP! What the hell do you care anyway?"

"I love you."

Asuka immediately stood when the third thing returned and jumped at her faster than light. The Second Child could only numbly, silently stare at Mariko Buick's profile as if an alien larva had burst from her chest cavity.

"Why is it that whenever I tell people that, they automatically assume I'm trying to fuck them? There're different ways to love someone. I shouldn't have to explain it anymore than that."

"You don't even know me," Asuka said when she could finally move her mouth. "When did I ever ask-"

"Why does _anyone_ ever have to _ask_ to be loved? Huh? Why can't it just be given?" Mariko remained perfectly still as her face panned to gaze coolly at the other young woman.

"This place is…_hope_. Okay, Asuka? Whenever I look around this place, I see damaged, angry people, and I see sadness, and a lot of self pity." A slick, solemn smile. "But after all the crap that happened, you're all still here. Still trying to smile. You're all still trying to live. If you all can make it, why can't I, you know? I want you and Shinji to give me some hope. I want to see you happy."

"I'm…flattered. But it's not my responsibility to give you hope."

"It _has_ to be you, Asuka," the sitting young woman stated with a velvet whisper, "because you're the only one that _can_. You're the only one that _knows_."

"I…" Asuka's breath betrayed her and left her lungs with a jagged shudder. "You're just _saying_ that…you don't need me and I don't need you…or anyone..._especially_ Shinji."

"Goodnight, Asuka." Mariko stood suddenly, looking exasperated and…disappointed.

Asuka could tell the other young woman was staring, but didn't see Mariko's face when the girl said, "If you can't accept that there are people here that love you, and want to see you do well, and if you can't find it in your heart to accept them and want to see them happy, too, you've got bigger problems than _I_ do."

"I think you're overstating things just a bit," Asuka meekly said to the carpet beneath her.

"No."

And when Asuka looked back up, Mariko had very nearly disappeared into the apartment hallway.

Asuka stood, and the third thing returned.

* * *

Maya was eternally grateful to herself that she had –on a whim, no less- cleaned her small town home when Fuyutski-sensei had ordered her home. Being secure in the controlled chaos that now ruled her life was one thing; expecting her underlings to put up with it was another. If Asuka was to be believed, Shinji was a notoriously prudent housekeeper, and though Maya was a full ten years older than the Ikari kid, it mattered to her that she made a good impression.

Maya would be equally grateful to herself if at this ungodly hour, she could go the _hell_ to sleep. She had about three hours of rest the night before, if you could call it rest. It was supposed to have been different tonight, with the cause of yesterday's FUBAR event pinpointed. New irritants kept her up now.

How many people _really_ wanted Shinji Ikari dead?

Nerv had been the most secure government institution in the past twenty years. Sixty-four percent of the Geofront grounds had been decommissioned after the war, and the downsizing had eventually trickled into the ranks of Nerv security. Next to the routine Evangelion-related practices performed on a weekly basis, the most dangerous thing she had done in the past six months was use the Magi to model the atmospheric inversion above Memorial Crater. _Riveting_.

She was happier than anyone the war was over, undoubtedly. It still saddened her on some level that the greatest organization the world would ever know was reduced to outsourcing its capabilities to meteorological instiutions.

Maya sat up. She resisted the swoon behind her eyes as her feet touched the carpet in the blackness of the room. Making certain not to look at her clock, she opened the door and walked into the dimly lit hallway. She was going to do…something. Go to the bathroom, or get some water, or guzzle cherry-flavored Nyquil.

Or check on Shinji...

With agonizing slowness, she crept to the western style door of his temporary room. She put an ear to it for three, four moments, hearing nothing but her own toneless breath. She turned the knob, pushing forward to glimpse his sleeping…

"Did I wake you, Maya?"

…form.

"I thought _I_ woke _you_," she said to his back. He sat still on the opposite edge of the bed and stared out into the moonlit scape beyond the large windows. As she walked around to sit next to him, her eyes adjusted to the blue light bathing the space and painting her bare arms. "I'm glad you're up, anyway. Maybe if I say some things, I'll be allowed to sleep."

She sat on the mattress a proper distance from him and eyed his face; black bars –shadows from the open blinds- laced the contours of his profile. "What're you doing?"

He pursed his lips and then spoke. "I don't know. I must've been waiting for you, because I wasn't really thinking about anything important."

"Oh." Maya ignored the curiosity his answer awoke within her. "You were waiting for an apology, then."

"What could you be sorry about?" He sounded truly puzzled.

"The thing is," she began after a second that was used to gather a coherent thought, "I can't say exactly. Lately, it seems that everyone except me thinks that Mariko is breaking you and Asuka up without even trying. When I had first contacted her, you and Asuka were the furthest things from my mind. It wouldn't bother me as much, I guess, if you two just grew apart, or if I was sure putting Mariko in with you was just some oversight of mine."

"Are you saying it wasn't?" he asked with perfect detachment. Maya's heat sank when she realized what she now had to explain.

"Shinji…the worst moment in my life was watching Asuka being slowly ripped to pieces. Every time I see her, every time I hear her voice, or _smell_ her, I remember that moment. Hearing her scream tore something away and it changed me, and…"

She almost stopped when she absorbed the nameless distress that adorned his features. "…and when I really think about it, I realized I would do a lot of things to escape those sounds, those smells…a _lot_ of things. One of those things might've been bringing in another pilot to shake things up. Asuka was always talking to me about doing other things and going other places. Did she ever say that, those types of things to you?"

"I never thought she was serious."

"When I'm honest with myself, I realize I considered what it might do to you and Asuka. And I just didn't care enough." Maya shrugged outwardly as shame filled her. "I'm supposed to be your guardian, and I didn't care enough, Shinji…do you hate me?"

"No. Why would I? Asuka's an adult. She's at least old enough to do what she wants. If she really wanted to know me, or wanted me to get to know her, it wouldn't matter _what_ Mariko was doing."

She raised an eyebrow and shook her head nearly imperceptibly. "You're…you're not mad? At all?"

"Maybe I should be, but I can't. I can't get mad, not if you're honest. I can appreciate the truth, because after Third Impact I was just so _sick_ of the lying. I still can't stand it, when people try hiding behind smiles while keeping everything ambiguous." He turned his gaze to her in a smooth motion. "Maya."

She blinked at the intensity of the look. "Yes?"

"Be honest with me. Ask what you really want to ask."

"What…" She swallowed, knowing. "W-what do I want to ask you?"

Immediately he said, "You want to ask why I didn't save Ritsuko."

_Ritsuko, not Dr. Akagi. Ritsuko. He knows. _

She could only look at him at first, and then admitted in a whisper, "You're right." Tears sprang to her eyes unbidden. "Well…why _didn't_ you?"

"I didn't know what I was doing. I punished the people that used me, and when I finally knew what the rules were, it was too late. If I had known what I was doing, I could've saved her." As they sat, Maya absorbed the young man's confession, and then new words assailed her. "Do you hate me?"

She blinked back the wetness that blurred her image of the questioning teenager, and smiled. Slowly but deliberately did she lean in and cup his warm jaw with gentle, cool hands. She inched closer, and finally touched her lips to his forehead. After a few seconds, she stopped, and with another moment of hesitation eventually rested her head on his shoulder and stared with him outside. The moon was so bright.

"A little."

End of Aperture

A/N: When I first began writing ITDR, my main concern (besides that I might totally suck at writing) was that I had no common theme. I tried not worrying about it, and did not force one, as it might have seemed contrived and artificial. I hoped that a theme would present itself as I progressed, and fortunately I was right.

To me at least, _In the Dark Room_ is about Asuka's acceptance of the people around her, including Shinji, Yukie, Maya…and yes, even Mariko. I think if we look at the original series from the perspective of the two movies, it is debatable whether or not Asuka comes to accept others in her life. Is that really true? I don't know, but it's the closest thing ITDR will have to a main theme, as far as I'm concerned.

Besides, if you can provide irrefutable proof whether or not Asuka comes to accept love from other people just by watching EoE…your ass deserves a #!&! cookie. For _real_.

Next Chapter: All She Ever Needed…


	11. All She Ever Needed

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is a Studio Gainax production, its characters created by Hideaki Anno. They say the word, and this story ceases to exist.

It is a sad commentary on the life of Asuka Langley Sohryu that Mariko Buick is not the worst thing to have ever happened to her…

In the Dark Room: All She Ever Needed…

By MidnightCereal

"Aida Residence."

"Guten Morgen, soldier boy. How's life in your parent's basement?"

"Who's this?"

"I'll give you a clue, stooge. It's Asuka, but you knew that already, didn't you?"

"How'd you get this number?"

"Oh _please_. One of the many things you're not is a secret agent. Believe me, I know. Hikari told me your number. Or did you forget about her, too?"

"Did you want something more than to just harass me?"

"Why the hell are you in such a rush? We haven't talked in ages. Your voice has gotten deeper."

"We never talked back then, either. What do you want?"

"Oh..._I_ see_now_…does daddy know you have a girl over?"

"Why are you calling me?"

"Is she cute?"

"Go practice your insufferable cock technique on someone else, _alright_? Why don't you go bother Hikari?"

"How long did it take you to blow her up?"

"Goodbye."

"Huh? W-wait! Kensuke, _wait_."

"This better be good."

"This better be…when the hell did you get so serious?"

"I'm not at all serious; I just wasn't expecting to hear from _you_, that's all."

"Well, I wasn't expecting to talk to you, either, but circumstance is a green-eyed bitch. God, you sound like Shinji."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

"Isn't it? He hasn't bothered to talk to you in years. Why are you defending him?"

"Why shouldn't I, Asuka? No one else did."

"That's _not_ true, and you know it."

"It _is_ true, and _you_ know it."

"Well…it's not anymore. And I don't give a damn if you believe me or not."

"Fine, Asuka."

"I need something from you."

* * *

On Friday morning, the fifth day with a house guess sleeping down the hall, Maya lowered herself into her chair and blinked at the food sitting before her at her table. "You made pancakes?"

Shinji nodded as he turned from the stove to his seat, a syrupy stack piled on the plate in his hand. "I learned how to make them from scratch because that's how Asuka likes them." He just smirked and nodded in response to Maya's arched eyebrow.

She shrugged and started on her breakfast. "Well, at least it's not waffles you're making from scratch."

"Why waffles?"

As she pulled the fork from her lips and chewed she shrugged again ineffectually, the buttoned-down night top bunching around her shoulders as she waited to swallow.

"When I was about fourteen, I took a trip to Australia to see a friend of mine, and her dad made waffles for us for a solid week. I didn't have any real breakfast food growing up, besides cereal, I mean. I just decided then, right there, that waffles were the Ultimate Bitch Food."

Shinji stopped divvying up his pancakes and made what can only be described as…a face. "_Huh?_" His knife went into motion, and when he was finished he took a sip of his orange juice. Or tried to, at least. "I'm sorry…what would prompt you to say or think that?"

"It was _just_ the _effort_ he _put_ into _making_ the _food_," she said, punctuating every other word by chopping the table with the blade of her hand. "It requires a waffle iron, its own special equipment –that you have to plug in- directions, and you need to watch it constantly so it doesn't burn."

She leaned back, oddly confident she had sufficiently validated her Alpha Breakfast Bitch Food Theory. Shinji ate, and when he avoided eye contact with the mad scientist, Maya laughed.

"I'm just joking, Shinji."

She wasn't.

"I think what you do for Asuka isn't bad at all. It's sweet. I think she appreciates it."

The smile that he wore was weighted, and when she saw it Maya's good mood immediately dissolved. She failed at hiding it as she dipped her head and resumed eating.

"Maya?" She kept eating. "You know it's not your fault at all? That I don't blame you?"

"These are really good, Shinji."

He dropped the subject when he realized no response to his consolation was forthcoming, much to Maya's relief. After they finished eating they prepared to leave her house.

"The past three days, how long did it take to drive you to school?"

"Maybe ten minutes," he answered, tying his shoes with his satchel slung over a hunched shoulder. "If it's trouble, I could just catch a bus from now on-"

"No, it's no trouble," she interrupted as she raised a hand. "I'm just running a little late for something at Nerv." She grabbed a handful of papers from a ledge near the door, and reached for the knob. "Just don't forget anything because we won't have time to go back."

"Don't you forget anything, either." He rattled something behind her. Turning, she held out her hand. Shinji placed the small plastic container in her palm, its contents slightly jostling as her fingers closed around it and she shoved it in her pocket.

"One before lunch…that's what Dr. Ueto said. Right?"

She nodded, both to answer his question and perhaps shake the embarrassment that presently consumed her. "It's just a trial. If I feel better I'll continue taking them, and if not…I'll deal with it the way I've dealt with it all this time."

"It's a start," he said, a smile gracing his maturing face. She returned it and pivoted back to the door, opening it and walking into the morning light.

"Shinji, don't take this the wrong way, but I should've been talking about all this with Asuka."

* * *

Yukie wasn't buying it.

"I'm not buying it, Asuka. You haven't _looked_ at, or _spoken_ to, or _yelled_ at, or _hit_ the guy in four straight days. Are you seriously trying to tell me that you two aren't having any problems? Whatsoever?"

"Yup," Asuka maintained with a conviction she almost felt. Almost. "Shouldn't the fact that I'm not yelling at him imply that things are okay?"

The class 3-B representative just threw her hands up with abandon, her loud groan carrying across the schoolyard as the two began to make their ways home.

"Look…I may not have graduated from…from _Munchin Lunchin_ or wherever the hell it is you got your college degree, but I'm not stupid. Yelling at and punching Shinji is your way of showing you care. Should I even bother to bring up the fact that you aren't walking home with him, that your hot guardian just picked him up to stay yet another night at _her_ place?"

"You just did. And no you shouldn't," Asuka replied, no longer surprised that Yukie would know things about Shinji's affairs. As they neared the front gate, the brunette was starting to look truly upset.

"_Why_ can't you just tell me, Asuka? What's the problem? Are you still mad I didn't tell you me and Shinji are friends?"

"No, Yukie. And I wasn't mad in the first place."

"_We're_ friends, now…_aren't_ we?"

"Wha…yeah. _Yeah_. Of course we are!" Asuka made sure to finish forcefully, cursing herself for stammering. The hurt on the other girl's face remained, solidified, even.

"Why are you shutting me out, then? Don't shut me out. If I was having problems with _my_ boyfriend, I'd want to be able to talk to _you_."

"That…_boy_…is not my boyfriend."

The class rep stomped her foot and then said, "Fine! He's _not_ your boyfriend! And I miss the Angels. And getting pregnant is high on my list of priorities before I graduate. And it's not royally pissing me off that you won't talk to me when something is obviously bothering you! But if I was having problems with 'guy I live with and share food with and fall asleep on the couch with and jealously lord over but is not my boyfriend', I'd _still_ want to talk to you."

She waved off the German's lame apology before it even left the red head's tongue. "Forget it, Asuka. I should've expected this." Yukie gave a defeated sigh as she looked down at her left foot, right, left, slowly leading her away from New Hakone High School. "Is Mariko…that person to you?"

"No."

That was lie. And it was disgusting.

Asuka knew what shadows lurked behind the light of Mariko's perfect kindness, and knowing that darkness tinged every moment of interaction with an unbearable anxiety. Asuka knew and felt these things. And yet, somehow, Mariko Buick had become the person she could confide in. She could talk to the Sixth Child about Shinji –as she had all week- on a level that she did not feel comfortable breaching with Yukie. She couldn't talk to Yukie at _all_ about Kaji. It had to be Mariko, because she was the only one that _knew_.

A murdering, unstable, physically intimidating psychotic time bomb, and Asuka…liked her.

_What the hell does that say about me?_

"She's just…sometimes she's convenient, Yukie-"

**I love you.**

"And that's only because I can never seem to get away from her."

Yukie was nonplussed. "Uh-huh. And where's she now?"

_Almost never_. "Probably on her way to a basketball court somewhere to embarrass some poor slob."

Yukie finally looked up. "Well, I'm not as convenient as your roommate, but I'm here now. I just…" And here, the pretty brunette inhaled. Her look was that of a hiker who was deciding whether or not to jump across a ravine. She leapt. "Have I ever told you how much I look up to you?"

"No, you haven't." Because Asuka would remember someone praising her. Nevertheless, the Second Child's curiosity was piqued by the other student's admission.

"I…I wasn't always vocal." Yukie hesitantly began. "I was never bossy as a little girl, if you can believe that."

"No, I can't."

"Shut up and let me talk!" Yukie squawked. "Even in junior high, I was so…_shy_ I hated myself. I couldn't do anything that involved me being outspoken, but when I saw _you_…when I saw how you acted back then, you spoke _for_ me. When I saw how easy it was for you to stand up, I got motivated, I even _felt_ stronger."

She cast a sideways glance at the red head, who tread silently beside her. "Isn't that _great_? How just…_knowing_ you was enough to make me stronger? I had this idea in my head, how I was going to walk up to you, and stand in front of you…" Yukie Utsumi paused as she sped up and interposed herself in Asuka's path, bringing the German to a halt. "…and look you in the eye. As an equal. I wanted your respect. You see what I mean, Asuka? So…how about it?"

"I _do_ respect you," Asuka said while wondering what the other girl would think if she knew how much the Second Child was struggling to match Yukie's intensity.

"Then trust me enough to help you. _You're_ the reason I have lots of friends, why I went out for track, why I'm class rep. We're _both_ leaders. I wouldn't be leaching off of you like some sick puppy. I'm an equal. So treat me as one."

"I will, Yukie. Just…just not right now." The Second Child stepped around her friend and started towards the tram station. "Respect that, alright? And trust me when I say I'll tell you."

"When," demanded the other young woman, returning to Asuka's side with quick long strides.

"Sometime when we go out this weekend. I'll call you-"

"Nuh-_uh_, that ship has sailed, red! You're not getting the opportunity to PMS your way out of this. _I'm_ calling _you_, so you _better_ have something good planned for us. _You're_ going, you're going to invite Mariko and _she's_ going, and I'm getting Aki and we're all going to have _fun_ pouring out of our asses, _goddammit_!"

Trying mightily to delete the image of what…_fun_ would look like pouring from a certain orifice, Asuka just blinked for a moment before speaking. "I have to tell you, you do Asuka better than I've done Asuka in the past few weeks."

They stopped walking as Yukie put her hands on her hips and dipped her head sagely. "And_I'm_ telling _you_, I don't see how you can keep this up. It makes you tense all over." She looked Asuka in the eyes. "I need to get laid." She leaned in closer to the speechless, wide-eyed red head. "And so do you." Yukie pulled back and quickly spun to start in the opposite direction. "You'll hear from me soon, pervert."

Asuka watched the back of Yukie Utsumi shrink as the class representative rapidly put distance between them. "And you call _me_ a pervert," she heard herself finally mutter.

"No I don't."

Kensuke Aida's entire bifocaled field of vision was immediately filled with Asuka's trembling fist, hovering a centimeter from his nose.

"I missed you too, you hateful gaijin shrew."

"You smell of urine, and burlap," Asuka informed him, lowering her instrument of grievous bodily harm. "Why the _hell_ are you here? Didn't I say not to come here? I did say wait for me to call you, remember?"

"We're not gonna do it right here, Asuka, calm down. What're you so afraid of, anyway?"

"Never mind. Just be glad no one else is here." She grabbed him by his bag strap and pulled him towards the location she had scouted a few days ago. "Let's just get this over with."

* * *

"That Yukie girl reminds me of Asuka a little bit," Maya said loudly, changing into home attire as she stood in her bedroom. Her audience said nothing at first, and the only indication she was not alone in her house was the slight commotion in the hallway.

"Ummm….she wasn't always like that," Shinji finally answered, his voice carrying over his seemingly random shuffling. "Back in ninth grade she was in the homeroom down the hall, class 2-C, I think. From what I saw of her, she was almost as quiet as Rei."

"Wow," was all Maya could say before she pulled her faded tee down over her short brown hair. "_That_ is saying a _lot_."

"A lot more than _she_ ever said. I don't know what happened to her, but it was like she grew a spine overnight."

A knowing smirk tinged the pitch of Maya's voice when she countered with, "Sounds like a certain Eva pilot I know."

"You can't be talking about me. But apparently Yukie thought I was worth something."

Maya suppressed a sigh. "Shinji, can't you just feel good about yourself for _ten_ seconds? What do you mean Yukie thought you were worth something?"

"She gave me chocolates on Valentine's Day."

"She _what_? Wait, giro-choco or honmei-choco?"

"Honmei-choco."

"She was serious, Shinji. This wasn't this year, was it?"

"Not this year. Last year, when we were freshmen, just before she started seeing this new guy. Asuka had probably been out of the hospital for about a month and a half by then." Maya heard him chuckle. "Even though Asuka never did find out I still thought it was pretty brave."

"What's funny?" Maya pondered aloud.

"I don't think she did it because she liked me. I'm not getting down on myself. I just think that's the honest truth."

"Why do you think she did it, then?"

"I think she was testing herself. She knew I was…spoken for but she did it anyway to build up her confidence. She knew there was no way I could've given her anything on White Day."

"That almost makes sense."

"It makes more sense that she did it to get Asuka's attention, like she was hoping Asuka would see I got something and then seek her out."

The young doctor shook her head to no one in particular, her toes curling on the soft carpet beneath her. "I don't know, Shinji. Yukie struck me as a smart, smart girl. And besides, if she really did have a death wish, she could've just given you the chocolates in full view of Asuka."

"Small doses, Maya. When you're as quiet as she was, you enjoy small victories. I know. It doesn't matter how little sense they make to the other people."

Something pierced the air with synthetic noise, and a moment passed before Maya reached the phone in her room and picked it up. "Hello…" Her smile did not vanish, but it did become more compact as she listened. "Shinji, pick up out there. It's for you."

"Who is it?"

"It's for you."

* * *

"Hello-"

"I don't think you're worse than your father. In fact, I don't think you're like him at all. I shouldn't have said that, but I hadn't been that angry in a long, _long_ time. But it wasn't because of the waiting. I don't mind waiting. I've been doing it for two years, and I could do it forever.

"What I _do_ mind, is sharing. Sharing you. With anyone. Ever. I didn't want Mana sharing you with me. I didn't like sharing with Misato, or Rei. _Especially_ Rei. I didn't like sharing you with Yukie when she gave you chocolates on Valentine's Day, _yes_, I _knew_ about that. I don't like you getting close to Mariko by sharing information about me, things I can barely tell _you_. I don't like the fact that you're at Maya's place right now because, admit it, she's a little hottie and a little lonely and a little crazy. I don't mind the waiting, at all, because you saved us, and we have _forever_ now.

"But. If I can't have you, if I can't have _all_ of you…come home soon."

Click.

* * *

With tentative footsteps, Maya Ibuki slowly crept into her living space, carefully eyeing the Third Child as he gently replaced the phone in its cradle.

"Shinji? Is everything alright?" She began wringing her dry hands. "What did she say?"

He looked at her. "I think I'm going to make waffles for dinner."

Then he smiled.

* * *

"All they're asking for is a student-t distribution."

"I see…so…why doesn't the problem tell you what the population is?"

"Mariko, I just _said_ why. It's a student-t distribution. You only need a sample."

"I…I see…"

"No you don't. You're not even paying attention to what I'm saying."

"Mmph…mrrrmbfghrhg…"

"What the hell did you just say?"

"I said," Mariko reiterated, pulling her head from her forearms resting on the (new) coffee table, and looking across at Asuka. "I can't stop thinking…or maybe I'm not thinking at all. One or the other, but I can't really tell. I didn't mean to ignore you. I'm drawing a blank, you know?"

The Second Child rolled her eyes. "I wish you would've told me that like two hours ago, it's ten past seven now!"

The American laid her head back down, her short messy hair framing her profile in a black halo. "Sorry," she whispered, eyes half-lidded. "I'm not feeling too good right now."

"Are you sick?" Asuka asked as she cautiously watched the melancholy teenager.

"No. I don't think so."

"You're just down?"

Mariko fully closed her eyes. "Yeah."

"Didn't think you could get down."

"Why, Asuka? I'm normal. I'm just like anyone else."

The German native closed her textbook, her pencil fluttering between her delicate fingers with practiced dexterity. "Let me see some of your pictures."

Mariko's eyes flew open, and her head craned upward so she could look at, and then through her roommate. "Asuka…I don't think that's a good idea."

"What's the worst that can happen?" asked the red head, raising a questioning eyebrow. "I'll find out you're a murdering sociopath?"

The American looked suddenly as if she had been struck in the gut. "Asuka…how could you-"

"How could I what? Tell the truth? You take oodles of pictures every time you go out. Just show me some good ones. I'm not expecting you to hand me some smoking gun."

Mariko became relaxed again as she looked away. In one swift motion she rose and stalked towards her room, returning in short order with a photo book which, to Asuka's eternal relief, was not red.

"Scoot over," said the American, plopping down next to the other girl as she placed and opened the album on the short table.

"That's you." Asuka was eyeing the small child smiling from an exposure in the far left corner.

"Yeah. I was probably eight then. My first foster home was this Vietnamese family in Seattle. See that there? That's where the Space Needle was." Mariko traced her old portrait with a finger before withdrawing it. "They had a son who was about three years older than me…" A ghost of her old smile drew the side of her mouth upward. "I had the biggest crush on him."

Mariko's audience traced the Sixth Child's smile with a long glance. "That's why you didn't stay with them?"

"No."

"Why didn't you stay with them?"

"_Because_…I don't know. But I ended up in Tennessee after that."

"Why am I in here, next to these old pictures?"

"Oh…I don't really put them in chronological order. I just like it that way, so every time I look it's a surprise, you know? Kinda like a digital mosaic."

Asuka leaned back. "Ewww…that's just…that's gross, Mariko!"

The taller girl, smiling still, shot a thoroughly confused look at Asuka. "Why is it gross that I don't put them in order?"

The German raised a finger and then lowered it, opened her mouth and then closed it, and then simply said, "It's not. Forget I even said anything."

"Is there something I'm not getting?"

"Yes."

"What?"

"Forget it."

"Why?"

"_Forget_ it."

"Why?"

"_Forget it!_"

"_Why?_"

"Because if I tell you, you're gonna tell me why you killed her."

Mariko's smile was to Asuka's question what a snow cone is to hell.

"Killed? Killed, killed who?"

"Her."

Mariko's green, cautious eyes followed Asuka's extended digit to an older photograph, or more specifically the person in it. Mariko was in the foreground, her bob cut jostled from behind, her shoulders supporting the thin arms of-

"Jackie."

"Jackie? That was her name?"

"Anybody but her."

"Why not her? I think the reason she's dead is the same reason everyone else is."

"What else do you think, Asuka?" Though Mariko was blinking, those irises remained on Asuka's extended finger, on the old photograph, diving into it. She was somewhere else now, and Asuka wasn't entirely sure she wanted to follow. But it was too late, now.

"I think…I think you take a picture of your new buddy." Asuka paused as she leafed over once. Yukie smiled at her over her shoulder. "I think you chat, and get comfy." She flipped again and Jin scowled unconvincingly, his mouth full of ice cream sandwich. Asuka flipped forward, and then back, paused and leafed forward once. "They get comfy, too. You tell them some things, and they feel like they can tell you _anything_."

_There's Maya. Danny and Aki._

"And then they do…"

_There's Shinji._

"And then you _snap_. And when it's all over you take another picture."

When Mariko would not meet her inquisitive look, the Second knew she was right.

"Asuka…I-I wouldn't want to-"

"I believe you," the veteran pilot calmly intoned. "You wouldn't want to. I believe that. But I _need_ to know, you _need_ to start_telling_ me."

"I can't…just…I don't know how-"

"Start _talking_. About _anything_. Just…the slightest, teensy weensy baby step. The littlest, most insignificant thing. You're always talking about how I have to open up, how I need to start accepting things. You said you're selfish. Fine. Are you a hypocrite, too?"

"I'm _scared_, Asuka," in a naked, hollow whisper. "You don't know what I would do."

"I have a pretty good idea. But you knew it would come to this, right? You're telling me to trust you? This is the first step. You want me to sit with you and watch _Denpa Shonen_ without judging the distance between me and the door every five seconds? You give me something. You know if you can't tell me, it could get a whole lot worse. _Right_?"

"You don't have to tell _me_ that."

"How am I going to trust you if you're not even trying?"

The resulting static hush bled into seconds, into a minute, before, "The answer, Mariko, is that I _don't_. I may be stuck with you, but that _doesn't_ mean that I have to trust you." Asuka Langley Sorhyu removed her index finger from the Sixth Child's memories and rose. "I have to go get clean, now." With that, she pivoted to make her way to the bathroom.

A hand clamped onto her wrist.

"My first memory," Mariko began, "was…a face. A man's face."

Asuka slid down so softly that at first she didn't realize she was being pulled back to her seat. "Who was it?" she asked.

"I don't know. I don't _want_ to know who it was…because it wasn't the face of a nice person. He was looking at me. He was staring down at me. He wasn't a young man, but he wasn't very old, either. But he had enough lines in his face to enhance what was already there."

"What was already there?"

Mariko paused and winced painfully as she inhaled. "Contempt. I maybe did something to him. Maybe. How _could_ I, though? I couldn't have been any older than _three_, you know?"

Mariko scooted away from the coffee table, leaning on the couch as she pulled her knees to her chest. "It was just him. Hating me, in a room that was…just solid black. I couldn't tell you where the light was coming from, how he stood out, his name, if anyone else was there. He didn't say anything. He didn't have to, 'cause his look spoke all his words."

Asuka thought for a second she viewed a tremble on Mariko's lip; she was as uncertain of that as she was of how Mariko had closed the distance between them without her noticing. Mariko's shoulder rubbed against her as the taller girl shrugged slightly. "You know what it said?"

"Only if you tell me."

Suddenly, her green irises were inches away from Asuka's own. "'_You don't belong here.'_" Mariko pulled back. "I realized that, even then. He laughed for some reason..."

And then, as if they were long-lost childhood friends, sisters…Mariko Buick rested her head on Asuka's shoulder. The German did not have time to raise a protest or even sufficiently tense before Mariko finished recounting her terrible first memory.

"…and then his head exploded."

The weight on Asuka's right seemed to sink further into her shoulder as she spent the following moment trying to purge the image from her mind's eye; a face splitting across its hemisphere from a grin it wasn't designed to facilitate, the smile growing like a crack in the fatigued metal fuselage of a jetliner…and then tearing across the malevolent carapace rupturing with sudden, catastrophic violence…

Asuka tried harder. "So…" she chanced, "is that why you-"

"No," was the answer, "but…it's a start. Isn't it? I've only told one other person about that. Jackie took that story with her." Asuka looked her in the face as best she could and was rewarded with emerald eyes welling with tears. "Telling you that…was _hard_."

"If the reason the way you are now is the reason Shinji and I have to have someone like Maya as our guardian, then I…"

_That's it._

"I…understand."

_That's it, isn't it?_

"You don't give a damn about your _father_…do you, Mariko? I bet you didn't even know him."

Mariko did not release the emotion in her wet eyes in an avalanche of repressed agony, but in a slow soft weeping bordering on manic laughter. Interspersed, somewhere, was the unmistakable air of…_joy_.

"You _got_ it, Asuka. You figured it out." The laughter grew stronger even as she cried. Mariko Buick buried her flushed, wet face into the shoulder of her…

"_Thank you_. I…I didn't even have to _hurt_ you."

…friend.

* * *

Yukie did not call on Friday night. Yukie did not call all of Saturday, and when she did not call by noon that Sunday, Asuka was scrounging through the pockets in her pants to salvage the class rep's phone number. It did not matter that she found it in a pair of sweat pants crumpled in the bottom drawer of her dresser; Yukie's phone wasn't even turned on.

"Mariko?"

"…Yeah?"

"I…wait, are you_still_ mopey?"

"Don't worry about it."

"I just want to know if you have Yukie's phone number."

"I have her cell phone number-"

"Her _home_ phone number. You _know_ I've been calling her cell phone all day."

"No. Sorry. I don't have that."

"How about Aki?"

"No. Sorry. I don't have that."

"Damn."

"Shinji might have Yukie's home number."

Asuka did not get to talk to Yukie that Sunday, which meant she was going to have a lot to say to her at school on Monday. That morning the German teen slung her satchel over her shoulder, biting into a piece of toast she had managed to utterly char. She stomped to the end of the hallway, blanching at the taste of pyrolyzed bread and swallowing as though it were fine saw dust. Her growing empathy for the girl was genuine, certainly, but at the moment…

"_Mariko!_ Get out of there! I have somebody to flay at school and I'm not waiting until lunch! You have _two_ minutes!"

With no answer forthcoming, Asuka knocked on the thin shoji as forcefully as she could without breaking it. "Get a grip, woman! You don't even want to _know_ what _my_ first memories are. Do you _hear_ me, Yankee? Don't make me come in th-"

A disturbance behind the frail door gave Asuka pause. Lowering her raised fist to her hip, she leaned to put her ear next to the shoji…and made out a muffled, constant weeping. Then, "You shouldn't say things like _that_!_Why?_"

She stepped away. Her auburn locks whirled behind her from turning in the direction from which she came, and they bounced across her back as she swiftly furthered herself from the word that followed her, that was now being repeated by the young woman behind that door.

"_Why?_"

Further.

"_Why? **WHY?**_"

When the voice behind that door collapsed once more with a wretched choking sob, Asuka knew she had to get yet further away.

Unfortunately, further never seemed to be far enough for Asuka, who heard that word even as she stepped alone into the Monday morning sunlight, onto the tram at the rail station, and as she stepped off three blocks away from New Hakone. For the sweetest moment, she blocked it out when her eye caught Yukie Utsumi sitting at her homeroom desk, robotically preparing for the day's lesson. Then Asuka remembered the reason she wanted to talk to class 3-B's student representative in the first place.

_Why_ didn't the brunette call this weekend?

"Hey! Oprah!" Asuka started on her, pushing past Chisa and Anita (who were also in Mariko's picture book).

"Oh…Asuka…" said Yukie, the girl's voice barely audible to the Second Child as she arrived in front of the class rep's desk.

"I'm _so_ flattered that you remembered." Asuka let sarcasm mingle with righteous indignation, but the concoction did nothing to quell the beginnings of disquiet from her friend's uncharacteristically morose disposition. "Oh, you're going to have a _good_ reason for standing me up this weekend. I can tell."

"Oh…that's right," Yukie admitted in a sullen whispered drawl, raising her head from her desk kiosk only so high as to glance at her friend, who was becoming more and more perturbed by Yukie's melancholy by the second. "I was supposed to call you."

Asuka smacked Yukie's desk with both palms and leaned over the brunette's terminal. "I don't believe this!" she exclaimed as she managed to keep the worry out of her hushed voice. "All that crap you gave me about being equals and not pussin' out and having fun, and you didn't even bother to remember! What were you doing that whole time, your boyfriend?"

Yukie looked up.

Asuka could no longer maintain the weak front masking her concern, because she knew that look, and had seen it on enough faces to know exactly what it meant. Hikari had worn it the night Asuka had –much to the great displeasure of Major Misato Katsuragi- visited the middle Horaki sister to tell her exactly why it was that Touji would not be having lunch with her anytime soon…

"What happened to him?"

"I just…I have a_really_ good reason not to have…" And then Yukie Utsumi clutched her stomach and mouth, bolting from her desk and shoving past Shinji as she hastily floundered into the hallway.

The entirety of class 3-B's attention was drawn to the doubled-over teen fleeing her post, and then to Asuka, who remained frozen and staring at Yukie's toppled plastic seat just for a second. In the next second she whirled, and when her eyes met Shinji's, the dam staying the panic rampantly circulating through her broke.

"YUKIE!"

Why was this happening?

End of All She Ever Needed…

A/N: N/A

Random A/N:

Acknowledgement: The origin of the Alpha Breakfast Bitch Food Theory, to my knowledge, is found in the story _Role Playing_, written by notable fanfiction authors Lara Bartram and Ammadeau. The story can still be found in Lara Bartram's fanfic archive located on her website. This woman's work is awesome.

Endgame begins next week, people. Thank you for reading and your criticism. Ja.

Next Chapter: Third Exposure


	12. Third Exposure

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is a Studio Gainax production, its characters created by Hideaki Anno. They say the word, and this story ceases to exist.

It is a sad commentary on the life of Asuka Langley Sohryu that Mariko Buick is not the worst thing to have ever happened to her…

In the Dark Room: Third Exposure

By MidnightCereal

Last Friday.

"Check."

"Check."

Jab step. Pump fake. Dribble drive right. Spin. Leaning floater in the lane…

Swish.

"Check up."

"Check."

Jab step. Fake left, dribble drive right. Spin. Drive to the lane. Step back. Eighteen foot jumper…

Swish.

"_Check_."

"Check up."

Step back. Twenty-seven foot jumper.

Swish.

"Who the hell _are_ you, Larry Bird's illegitimate daughter? Check!"

"Check."

Pump fake. Dribble drive to the left corner, stop. Hesitation left, crossover, drive right. Spin. Fade-away pump fake. Lean-in reverse up and under no-look finger-roll with the left hand what the-

"-_fuck?_ How…_check_-"

"No man, it's over-"

"No Jin, it's_not_…the games _not_ over."

"Taro, she's beating you ten to _nothing_. She's gonna _skunk_ you-"

"The game's to thirteen, she only has ten-"

"She only has as many as she _needs_. Quit, dude. It's not embarrassing. Yet."

"The game's not over!"

"Dude, quite while you're ahead-"

"Quit while _I'm_ ahead?"

"-before it's too late. She does this to everybody. She's being easy on you. She's being nice. Trust me, man."

"I…Jin…it's only _ten_."

"Taro, do you fucking_hear_ yourself? I am _telling_ you –as a friend- let go of your damn pride, 'cause it's gonna get you _injured_…"

"Tsch, man, I …alright…game."

"Good call. You hang out here long enough and she's gonna do something that'll make you glad you quit."

"I'm taking your word for it."

"I'm only saying because I care. Your ankles will thank you…snicker…she made you_fall_…"

"Man, _shut up_…she pretty much owns that side of the court. You shootin' around on the other end?"

"Can't get tired. Game tonight."

"Oh yeah. Against?"

"New Hakone."

"You'll handle them easy, Jin."

"Maybe. I don't know. All I know is I'm just glad they don't have _her_. Or we would be so incredibly _fucked_."

"So you're gone?"

"Yeah." And on that note, Jin Takashi, the six-foot black-haired point guard for Municipal Academy's varsity basketball team, rose from his outdoor courtside seat and dusted himself off. He looked back down to his sweating, defeated best friend. "Taro, catch ya later."

"I'll be at the game," said Taro as he put a hand up to wave Jin off. "Good luck."

Jin's sneakers scuffed the gravel surrounding the court as he distanced himself from it, turning his thoughts from the force of nature that had just utterly ravaged Taro, who was right about New Hakone (their hated rival).

Municipal had fourteen wins against only one loss, a buzzer-beating defeat at Tokyo-3 High (their other hated rival), a team that owned 12-3 New Hakone by twenty and sixteen points the two times they had played. All they had to do was run their offense and execute the fast break. N-H didn't have the horses to win a track meet, and _no one_ in Kanagawa Prefecture was faster than Jin with a basketball. They'd wear down faster than a-

"Hey!"

…down faster than a…um…

"_Hey! Jin!_"

Um…faster than a…a…could her shorts get _any_ smaller?

Jin was pretty sure his eyes were back in his sockets by the time Mariko slowed and came to a halt a step from him. "Jin, you forgot this," she breathlessly exhaled, holding out the young man's satchel, readjusting her own over her shoulder.

"I _thought_ I felt happier than I usually do at this time of day." Jin grabbed his bag and swung it onto his back with practiced ease. "Thanks for bringing me my burden." He started walking again.

She smiled sardonically as she fell into step. "You're welcome…why are you digging in your bag?"

"Towel," he said simply. He found purchase on the soft cloth, pulling it out and placing it on the young woman's damp hair.

"Thank you, Jin," she said sweetly. "It's not that hot today, so I was just planning on cooling off on the way back home, you know?"

He pointed at her exposed thighs. "Well, how the hell could you not?" he exclaimed, "Look at all that surface area. You're hardly wearing anything!"

She blinked at him before looking down at her largely bare legs. "You don't like my John Stockton's?" She picked at the elastic band around the waist of her Gonzaga replicas. "These are my assist man shorts. Something about them makes me want to share the ball, or just help people. Isn't that retarded?"

"John Stockton's, huh? Whose shorts do you wear when you want to score?"

Her expression changed, and suddenly his rangy, sweaty, athletic platonic contemporary turned into a woman. "I'm not _wearing_ any shorts when I want to score," she huskily breathed, pursing her lips dangerously while pulling up the short sleeve of her shirt.

Jin swallowed, and with considerable effort turned away from the smiling, wet girl walking next to him. "Um…I really shouldn't be talking dirty to you while you're wearing those glorified panties. I swear, Yukie can_smell_ when I've been near another girl, and she'd just kill me."

"_Jin_, I'm just messing with you. I hardly get to flirt at home because Shinji is _owned_. Besides, Yukie's kinda loud, but she's the understanding type, you know?" She shrugged and Jin saw from his periphery Mariko staring at his temple. "You won't have to worry about Yukie killing you."

"Do you really wear a different pair of shorts depending on your mood?"

"Except when I want to score-"

"Okay, Mariko, okay. I get it. You're nasty…what?"

She titled her head, raising an eyebrow in an almost sour expression. "I'm…just trying to find a way to take that as a compliment."

"Not nearly as nasty as what you did to Taro. How's that?"

She nodded. "_Much_ better. And Taro's pretty good."

"Taro's _awesome_," Jin corrected her. "And you just…just _worked_ him! I remember you telling me about some Tennessee coach being your foster mom, but I'm tellin' you, I didn't know it was like _that_."

"She _wasn't_. A **_mom_**."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Oh. So, how'd you get so damned good, really?"

"The same way everyone else that's good at anything got good. I didn't have a lot of constants with all that moving around. But all I ever needed was a ball. Just shot and dribbled until I was picture perfect."

He smirked as a sound ahead drew his attention. Maybe two-hundred meters away, a tram slid away from the adjacent elevated platform, its Plexiglas panes glinting in the late afternoon sunlight. "What'd they call you?"

She shook her head as she considered his question. "I'm not getting you…"

Sighing, he elaborated. "C'mon, Mariko. As good as you are? When you play basketball, what is your nickname? And don't tell me you never had one."

She began hesitantly. "Well…" Jin swore the blush was from embarrassment and not her recent exhaustion. "…back when I was living in Knoxville, I ran with the college kids at the HPER. They-" She broke out in nervous laughter. "They used to call me 'Seppuku', 'cause going up against me was ritual suicide." She stuck her tongue out in a silly gesture.

"Don't sound so embarrassed," Jin suggested with genuine kindness. "You earned that nickname, though I always thought 'Flower of Carnage' suited you better."

"Why?" she cackled, "I remind you of Meiko Kaji?"

"No. Of my mom."

She cackled again, grinning as something touched her face, just for a second creasing her brow, then vanishing. "You shouldn't saaaaaay things like_thaaaaaat_…"

"And why the hell not?" asked Jin, suppressing the urge to be offended by her answer. "It's my _dead mother_ we're talking about. That doesn't imply nice things?"

"Why…why do you say that I …" Mariko quietly ventured, looking at her feet as she strolled.

"I'm trying to compliment you…and you just do. It just makes sense to me, looking at you; mom was a tomboy. She'd get up real early, but not to cook or anything, but she'd run, like ten kilometers. And _fast_. And when summer came around and I didn't have school, I'd go with her. My dad played some basketball too, so everyone thinks _he_ taught me."

She did not return the glance he flashed her, opting instead to breath and blink and stare half-lidded at the concrete below her. Regardless of, or perhaps compelled by her silence, he continued.

"Dad was always away because he works for Mishima Heavy –he's gone now, actually- but mom was always there. Always. Some years back the Lakers played the Suns in Kobe, she took me to the game, down to the floor after it was over. _God_ I love that woman…she made me a fan that day, got me Amare Stoudamire's autograph. I don't think I even want to_know_ how she got me Steve Nash's jersey. I've been playing and collecting shit ever since, and dad's the same way. I think I'm part pack-rat."

Something flashed when he again turned to look at Mariko. When the spots in his eyes dissolved, he stared ruefully at her. "You could've given me fair warning."

"Okay," she said, replacing her camera in her bag. "About five seconds ago I'm going to take your picture. Fair enough?" She laughed when his scowl deepened. "Jin, you were _smiling_. We've probably played thirty hours of basketball together, and that's the first real smile I've seen. Look, if it bothers you that much, don't sweat it. I'll take another of you soon, anyway."

Municipal's star point guard couldn't maintain his false displeasure any longer, and broke out into a wide grin. "You're runnin' outta time. We're at the station, and you go in the opposite direction from here."

She bit her lip. "Well…I don't _have_ to. You got some other basketball stuff?"

As they approached the entrance to the station, another tram rumbled into the terminal above them. He mulled. "Have you ever seen KJ Matsui's mixtape?"

Her eyes became saucers as she gasped. "_KJ Matsui?_ KJ 'The Rising Son' Matsui, playing _street ball_?" She grabbed his shoulder and squeezed. "I _have_ to see this. _Now_."

She pulled him to the turn-styles, and when Jin produced his fare card he said, "Dad hated it when mom watched that video. He swore she had the hots for-"

* * *

"Wow, Jin. Is your dad trying to buy your love, or what? Look at this place…" Mariko trailed off as she looked back at the path leading from the street entrance to the front door. Her whistle echoed in the expansive green front yard.

Jin fumbled with the key as he considered her reaction to his large, large home. Like he could help it if his dad was successful. "I go easy on the guy. All he's trying to do is what mom asked of him before she passed. All in her name and all for me. Sure, he's not here often, but I'm not that dumb a son to think he doesn't care or anything." With a quick jiggle and a metallic click, his front door opened. "Pop's doing the best he can the only way he knows…"

He walked through the threshold with Mariko following closely behind, looking genuinely apologetic as she pulled off her first shoe. "I'm sorry, Jin…that's really not like me. I usually think before I ever say_anything_-"

He waved off her ensuing words as he started towards the kitchen. "Don't be sorry, it's not that big a deal. That's everyone's reaction when they first come here. Can't get mad at human nature, can you?"

"You _can_…but_you_ don't. I'm starting to see why Yukie loves you. You're forgiving. Like Shinji is."

That's the second time she's mentioned him. "You seem to like a lot about Shinji. You like his forgiveness; you want to flirt with him…"

"It's not like that," Mariko countered as Jin crossed the kitchen to the refrigerator. She ran her eyes over the polished marble kitchen island. "I'm not saying it's not a nice thought. I mean, you know what they say about a guy with a big heart." Her voice was colored with something…not for children.

"Please stop talking," he said simply. "I'm looking through here. Want anything to drink?"

"What do you have?"

"Some Itoen, orange juice…" Jin grinned as a thought came to him. "Some _purple stuff_…hey, alright, Sunny-D!" He turned to gauge her reaction, which was nothing more than a blank stare anticipating the arrival of liquid refreshment.

"What?" she asked after a vacant moment.

He sighed and pulled the O.J. from the appliance. "Nothing." The young man closed the refrigerator door and ran a hand though his short, black hair. "You_are_ an American, aren't you?"

"Yeah," she confirmed. "Why?"

"Never mind." He placed the container on the island counter. "Help yourself. I'm gonna go find that video. Look around if ya want."

"Hope I don't get lost," Mariko said as she glanced into an adjacent hallway. "Everything looks so expensive, I'm afraid to touch anything."

"No, on the contrary, touch as much shit as you like," Jin admitted with easy sincerity. "Really. Dad's such a clean freak. I love it when he comes back and all his collections are all fucked up. I think he likes it, too. It gives him an excuse to go clean."

With that he made his way back to the foyer and bounded up the stairs two at a time. It didn't take him long to find the video. He had no right at all to riff on his father about his organization fetish. There were three sections in his room, and though he would never admit it to any of the guys, they were devoted to the loves of his life.

The first section belonged to Yukie, smaller than the other two, but growing by the day. Had it really only been a little more than a year since he had torched New Hakone for thirty-eight points, and when the game was over turned to the girl in the stands who had loudly insinuated why was he was so good at handling large balls? He screamed at her. She screamed back. Then she smiled, the same way she was in the simple picture frame on his desk. That had been a very good day.

His second love was basketball, and if Mariko was as big a hoops junkie as she seemed to be, she would walk into his room and just convulse; there were blow-ups of big pasty-looking dudes getting posterized by ridiculously overpowered superstars adorning his walls, rally towels, an autographed Rawlings from teams Lithuania _and_ Argentina, a Lebron James headband…

…Steve Nash's Jersey.

Mom's section was the largest. It was among her worn-to-the-soul Asics GT 2100's, her right-handed and left-handed baseball gloves and Mizuno ash bat, her medical gown, her crutches, her cane, her quilt, her video will, and her final medical bracelet, that he found the DVD he was looking for. He grabbed it, and the hallway darkened as he turned and left the room, closing the door on the ordered sunlit space and a memory he did not feel like reliving at the moment.

"JIN! YOU HAVE ANY NAPKINS?" Mariko yelled up to him.

"UH…YEAH! THEY'RE IN-"

"NEVER MIND. I FOUND THEM! THANKS!"

What did she do? Mariko didn't strike him as the clumsy type.

_That's what I get for telling her she can touch everything._

He waltzed into the kitchen, video case dangling loosely in his fingertips. Besides him, the room's only occupants were a lonely empty plastic cup and a container of orange juice, untouched.

"Mariko?" he called, suddenly remembering the direction the green-eyed teen had looked when they talked last. His feet padded soundlessly on the carpeted hallway floor, coming to the end of it and looking across their family's empty den. He mentally shrugged; she probably found the bathroom, and they were going to watch it in here anyw-

"Clean and elegant. Without waste."

He spun, barely containing his start at the girl's sudden appearance. "You say the _weirdest_ things, you know that?" He looked down and past her. "Watcha got there?"

She showed him.

Something silver traced a glinting arc through the air that terminated behind Jin's neck. In its stead was a battle-axe, its heavy blade slick with ichor, buried in the wall and framed with crimson splashes.

A moment passed.

Beads ran together on the undersurface of the annealed steel, collected in bulbous aggregates and trickled down its sloping edge as if the task had caused the blade to perspire. They plummeted and lost definition as their descent brought them closer to the spreading pool below them.

The grip through the napkin slackened on the hilt and then entirely dissolved. Her hands fell away. Her arms swung loosely from the shoulders until their momentum ceased. Involuntary blinking was the only indication she was more alive than what she was staring down at now, a cooling quivering heap.

Abruptly, she pivoted and followed her measured footfalls back to the kitchen. She stopped at a wooden stool and fished through the satchel sitting on it, producing a black camera she clutched with steady fingers. She adjusted and then hardened her grip. The pink flesh on her thumb deformed from being pulled over the brightening plasma screen. Damp funhouse mirror fingerprints were visible for a bare moment, and when they vanished from her pixilated display she was at the axe again.

She raised the camera, aimed at the floor, and looked though the portal. She flicked a thumb and the image became incrementally smaller as she pulled the walls in to frame the portrait. She flicked it again. Again, wider. Wider. She looked up. The joint in her ankle creaked as she stepped back, pulling her other foot back to join its sister, away from the crimson spread that expanded in radius with a saturating, glacial creep. Once more she raised the camera, and this time, both the head _and_ body were visible…

Click.

She lowered the camera.

Mariko Buick began to shake. One unseen force moved her lips to speak words no one could hear, another buckled her legs. She sank like a crippled freighter, and when her knees touched the floor she trapped her head with her hands. Mariko knelt and drew ragged breaths, her eyes tracking upward from her lap to the rim of gore, to the twitching husk, and finally to the head behind it _blinking_…

Her green, dampening eyes shot wide as she lurched forward, and one hand came from her damp black hair to clasp her mouth. Swallowing, she wearily stood, the words she spoke gaining volume with each rubbery step.

"You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like_that_. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't-"

* * *

Monday.

Asuka tried not to think as she rummaged through a small box in her closet. She had put it in here somewhere, beneath musty textbooks and shrouded by her shadow and an old FC Bayern München sweatshirt.

She had almost forgotten about it, _did_ forget about it. She had wanted to forget. Now, the memory of that thing –a 'gift' from her grandmother- what it represented, shot upwards from the depths of her past, buoyed by necessity. She needed this, and as much pain she knew finding that thing would cause her, she deserved it. Because she liked Mariko. Because she waited too long.

Because it was her fault as much as it was Mariko's that Yukie had that look on her face…NO, NO, STOP THINKING ABOUT IT. JUST KEEP LOOKING. Just-

_no one deserves to ever have that- _

look.

_Coward_.

She found it.

* * *

"So you got everything?"

"Yeah, Maya."

"Okay…you have your SDAT?"

"Yeah."

"Okay…I think I saw one of your shirts in the bathroom. Was that your shirt?"

"Yeah. I got it. I zipped it up with everything else. I have everything, Maya."

"Is that textbook on the counter yours or mine?"

"I don't even know what a 'Crank-Nicholson Implicit' is. I'm pretty sure it's yours."

"Okay. Make sure you have your cell phone. I don't know when I'll see you next."

"I have my phone. I remembered everything, Maya."

"I could give you a ride. It wouldn't be a problem."

"I'm not in _that_ big of a rush to get back. I don't want to put you out."

"I just _said_ it's no biggie. I'll get my keys-"

"No, it's okay. Really. I like taking the bus."

"This…_creep_ that killed your classmate's boyfriend is out there, somewhere. We just finished catching someone that wanted you dead."

"I'll be fine, Maya. I'll call you when I get in."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Sure?"

"_Yes_."

"…Okay."

"Bye, Maya…thank you for this."

"You're welcome. Make sure to take your SDAT, now."

"You're starting to remind me of Asuka, you know that?"

"Who knows, maybe if I was younger I would've been…"

"Huh?"

"What bus are you catching?"

"T-17, eastbound. I made some waffles for you in case you got hungry. They're in the fridge, next to the cheesecake."

"That's so sweet of you, Shinji."

"Hey, what are bitches for?"

"I think right now's a good time for me to start wishing I had never told you that story. It just makes me sound…"

"Crazy?"

"Yes."

"Crazy's just fine. I love crazy…it's waiting at home for me. Right now."

"Okay…"

Shinji disappeared on the other side of her front door with a wave. Maya stopped smiling back immediately, but a number of seconds passed before she unfroze her bare feet at the entrance. They noisily slapped the floor as she proceeded to the kitchen table and sat down heavily in the first chair she could grab. The points of her elbows protested as she propped them on the surface and held her head between her dry palms.

Maya tried not to be upset. Why should she be? Her home was the cleanest it had ever been. She had helped her charges, however tangentially, alleviate the strain between the two of them, uh, three of them. Her protégé had vindicated herself and Maya by uncovering the plot to murder the Third Child, and helping to identify all eleven Nerv officers that had conspired to do so. She had _real_ food in the fridge for a change, all lovingly made by the first and last male Eva pilot, and now her whole place smelled like him…

Trapped between positive reflection and a familiar advancing depression, Maya escaped by rising from her seat with a soft groan and trudging toward her refrigerator.

Everything was okay…

* * *

In the heart of Tokyo-3's Third Impact Memorial Cemetery, Yukie Utsumi looked up from the ground as if she sensed something. Upon turning her head left and squinting down an aisle of black markers that intersected adjacent rows at a vanishing point, she spotted something. The object changed perceptibly, barely, but it was clear it had noticed her, too. When it waved, Yukie walked towards it.

* * *

"Would…you think I'm sick if I said that I liked being here, that this place was beautiful?" Mariko asked with quiet hesitation.

Yukie shook her head. "No. It _is_ beautiful. But that's not why I'm here, though."

"Asuka told me. Sorry I wasn't in school today. I'm just…going through some things, you know? Not that I have a right to complain to you-"

"Don't pity me," Yukie said with polite abruptness. "Our problems are important to each of us. So complain, Mariko. I don't mind if you don't mind_me_ bitching."

"I don't."

"You're dealing. So am I..." Yukie's mask very nearly crumbled. "It's just…right now I can't really stand to be anywhere else. Because people are smiling and laughing _everywhere_ _else_."

Mariko adjusted the strap on her light bag, looking uncomfortable in her own body. "I understand you. I really do."

"You know anyone here, Curly?"

"Look down." Yukie did so. "I…kinda know her. Shinji and Asuka's former guardian, before Ms. Ibuki. That's what Shinji told me. Misato, Yukie. Yukie, Misato."

Yukie mouthed the name. "Misato…hi, Misato. I wonder…how she died."

"She was shot in the back."

"What'd she look like?"

Mariko's hand found Yukie's shoulder and gently pulled the brunette into an identical crouch. "Touch her name on the marker," the young American said. Yukie complied, her outstretched fingers scanning the chiseled inscription. Below her reaching palm a distinguishable shape seemed to rise to the surface of the cold black stone. The shape too was black, but less reflective, so that the resulting contrast produced…a face. It was framed by long shimmering locks of hair, on top of which sat a Nerv-issue beret.

"She's smiling," Yukie said.

"Yeah."

"She…she was beautiful," Yukie said.

"I know. I said the same thing."

"She was only thirty," Yukie said.

"I said that, too."

"Mariko, it's weird," Yukie confided. "I'm here, talking about how sad it is a woman I didn't even know died at thirty." She brushed at her lap as she knelt, a sickly smile scrawled onto her exhausted face. "Jin had just turned eighteen, and…I feel like shit, sure enough. Like something is pressing on me from all sides. Why aren't I crying, though? I didn't even cry when I found him."

"You…_you_ were the one that…" Mariko paused as her mouth turned downwards. She swallowed something, naked despair terminating the final vestiges of mirth etched into her brow, itself furrowing to match her tortured green irises. Those twin pools welled with tears. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry…"

If the brunette had noticed Mariko's deteriorating composure, she gave no sign. "Even though I saw him, it doesn't feel real. None of it does. It hasn't really hit me yet, because I can imagine him calling me. Any moment now. He's going to ask me to come over. When it hits me –really hits me- it's going to crush my heart. I just know it. I'm going to fold like a house of cards… and it's going to be ugly…"

Yukie paused just long enough to remove her hand from the obelisk and watch Misato Katsuragi's tempered grin fade back into the black façade. She looked at the black-haired girl, only to find herself staring at the crown of the teenager's bowed head as she fished through the bag at her hip.

"Mariko, it's just that…did he _have_ to be _smiling_ when I found him? Like the _ghoul_ that left him like that did him a favor? I mean, goddamn, we've been dating for just a year, yeah, but I loved him. I LOVED him, and he left me. Was he really that fucking happy that we wouldn't see each other again?"

"Of course he wasn't," Mariko whispered.

"Then why was he smiling? Dead people shouldn't smile like that. Ever."

"You're right." Mariko's hand reemerged from her bag, pinching something between her fingers, holding it out to the other young woman after briefly hesitating. Mariko was still looking at the ground when Yukie took it with both hands…

…and sucked in a razor-sharp breath.

"W-when," Yukie started, licking her trembling lip. "You took this…WHEN did you_take_ this?"

"About…a week ago. You know we played ball together? He was good, even put me on my butt a few times. We were friends. But I don't need that picture. He's smiling here, Yukie-"

"He's _alive_ here…" were Yukie Utsumi's last intelligible words before she folded over, physically crumbling into Mariko and crushing the photograph to her heaving chest.

"I'm sorry, Yukie. God, I'm…I didn't…I'm _sorry_."

And then it got ugly.

* * *

When Mariko stepped over the threshold into her apartment she immediately fingered the heel of one sneaker, then the other. They clattered to the floor while Mariko sank to it against a wall, the back of her white shirt bunching in thin folds. Instead of bowing her head, she held it up as if listening.

"Asuka," she called. "Asuka, are you here? We…we need to talk. I'm ready to talk!"

No answer, and before she spoke again the only disturbances were her own unsteady inhalation and the rustle of her top as her shoulders lurched of their own volition.

"Asuka…I know you're here! I can feel it. Please don't be like this. I know you know what happened. Help me. _Please?_"

"I'm about to. Get out here. I want you to see something."

Mariko immediately stood, but crept through the entry hallway as if it were a mine field. When she successfully navigated the dimly lit corridor she turned into the main living space, wringing her hands like a guilty child. The advancing dusk streamed into the room and drowned its only occupant, standing…

"What the hell is up with your chest, Mariko? You're lactating?"

…and holding something.

"I-I saw Yukie today. We had a talk and…and she opened up. Why do you have my camera?"

"I guess it's like you said. Everybody has to tell somebody."

"I'm glad I got to talk to her, see her. This isn't the first time I've ever met someone after I hurt them like that. But…I just got this empty feeling when she started crying, you know?" She swallowed. "Can I have it back?"

"Empty, huh? Then you should have plenty of space left for a little session I prepared. Right?"

"Right. I want my camera back. Now."

Asuka just smiled. Camera perched in one upturned hand, she slightly knelt forward and grabbed something on the couch with the other. A remote.

"Asuka…" Mariko said in a low voice while stepping forward for the first time-

"If I said to you that you move like bowels on ExLax but you're no Flo-Jo, you wouldn't have any idea what the hell I'm talking about, would you?"

"No."

"I didn't think so," Asuka admitted. "If I said that I'll smash this bloodthirsty piece of shit if you come at me, would you understand_that_?"

Mariko came to a halt.

Asuka's smile broadened in width and cruelty. "Have a seat."

End of Third Exposure

A/N: _God_, I wanted to kill Yukie.

Mariko offing Yukie would've made much more of an impact, but alas, I couldn't do it. Yukie and Mariko have a good relationship, but are they _friends_? Do they have anything in common? Is there any reason why Yukie would feel comfortable talking about family matters with Mariko?

Besides…I like how Yukie turned out. Do I want to waste her on a quick hack n' slash?

All in all, this was a risky chapter. This is the first and only chapter (aside from the omake) that has ACC's interacting exclusively with ACC's. But hey, at least I decapitated one of them, right?

Thank you for reading and your criticism. Ja.

Next Chapter: Fourth Exposure


	13. Fourth Exposure

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is a Studio Gainax production, its characters created by Hideaki Anno. They say the word, and this story ceases to exist.

It is a sad commentary on the life of Asuka Langley Sohryu that Mariko Buick is not the worst thing to have ever happened to her…

In the Dark Room: Fourth Exposure

By MidnightCereal

"Mr. Yamada, you had some things you wanted me to see?" Agent Choi closed the door behind him and strode to Agent Benny Yamada's side, all the time moving efficiently, with purpose. Now away from the door, the sounds in the corridor faded, replaced by the hum of high-end machinery.

"Sir," Yamada addressed the stern-looking Korean, "I still want you to see these. They were on Captain Hyuga's personal kiosk, encrypted, and you want to commit them to memory and then notify everyone it concerns not to panic while simultaneously getting them the hell to safety."

Agent Choi took off his glasses, placing them next to the young security agent's flat-screen monitor. "I want you to do two things, Yamada. First, please move back so I can see what you want to show me. Second, take a damn breath. Good young agents are hard to come by these days."

He moved in closer as Yamada rolled back in his desk chair. Choi placed his palms on the desk as he scanned the highlighted documents on the glowing screen. When he reread them, his thick fingers dug into those palms like blunt spikes. He took a breath, and then said, "Shit."

* * *

"Asuka…what're we watching?" Mariko inquired. Her voice was chick-down soft, as were her movements as she slowly glided to and sunk into the couch. Asuka wasn't fooled; no docility in tone or physicality on the taller girl's part would convince the German that Mariko was anything but a coiled, waiting viper. Between heartbeats, Asuka once again gauged the distance separating them.

"The best thing I've ever had the pleasure of crying to," Asuka answered, still smiling, daring to blink only when her eyes itched for moisture. She pointed the controller at the old DVD player below the television, and it responded with a faint but high whine. After a moment the whine faded and the blue screen was replaced with green. Organic shuffling verdant shades carpeted a backyard. Darker vines rose in the background, coiled and collaborated, shrouding the red brick wall in thick mingling foliage.

Bubbling, impish laughter entered from the right of the stereo sound as its owners –a small boy and girl- tore across the screen, thoroughly engrossed in some ludicrously tiring game. There was a break in the film and suddenly people were standing in front of the wall. For the first time intelligible words could be heard.

Asuka didn't have to concentrate on what was being said, instead watched Mariko lean in slightly as the adults on screen jovially discussed –in German- why it was that Geli wanted to go to Heidelberg when her parents had both graduated from Gottingen. When Geli –a girl with chestnut hair- suggested she wanted instead to attend a _good_ school, a man and woman (a couple) ooohed good-naturedly while a second lady failed to hide laughter behind her hand. This last person caught Mariko's eye.

"Asuka…she's-"

"Don't talk to you about what I wouldn't want you talking to me about. Right? Watch."

"She looks like-"

"_Watch_."

Something short caught the woman's eye, and she looked down and past the camera, her voice pattern becoming softer, sweeter, her face filling with equal parts love and intense pride. "_Come here, honey. Are you getting tired?_" she said, putting her hands on her knees and beaming.

_There_. Right there in the corner of the screen. Geli, the couple and the single woman all looked there as a small auburn mop toddled into the foreground. It belonged to a terribly young child, and Asuka could see in Mariko's horrified expression why she was watching this video and who the lady was when she swept the baby up in, and into this to crook of her arm and the child looked back with sky-blue eyes…

"Turn it off," Mariko said, shooting up from her seat.

"Sit down. It's not over yet."

"Asuka, _please_, I can't watch this anymore! Please don't push me-"

"YOU PUSHED FIRST, BITCH!" Asuka raised the camera in her hand as if she were about to hurl it, and Mariko achingly returned to her seat, quivering with some malignant instability.

When Kyoko Zeppelin Sohryu kissed her young daughter on the cheek, the baby's face scrunched and disappeared over mother's shoulder. Kyoko laughed, and then cooed.

"Mariko, you remember when I asked you to guess the first thing I feel when Shinji comes to mind?"

The short-haired girl was bent over, her face hidden behind her tense hands. And she was completely silent before finally saying, "You said anger."

"And it was," Asuka softly confirmed. "Before I saw that video. But this," She pointed to Kyoko, bouncing the little girl on her arm, "made all the difference in the world. Looking at this is as close as I've ever been to my mother in a long, long time. And…and I just don't mean impressions of her, or feeling her presence while piloting Eva."

She just barely reigned in her laughter when the other girl gasped.

"You didn't know that, did you? It's probably not the case with that scrap heap sitting at headquarters now, but my Eva, Shinji's Eva at least, they housed our mother's souls. The last time I fought, I could feel her watching over me." Mariko's green eyes were screaming. "Even though people were trying to kill me at _that_ very moment, I was so happy."

"You shouldn't say things like that, Asuka."

"Why? What's going to happen if I do? What'll happen now that wouldn't have happened a week from now? In a month? You think I'm going to wait?" Asuka gritted her teeth, and through them she said, "This is going to happen NOW. No one else is here, and I'm going to do what I should've done when I first found out."

"I don't want to kill you…please turn it off…_please_."

"God…" Asuka did laugh, then. "I can't believe this. I want to _thank_ you…I never feel like this unless you're threatening my life, you know that? I didn't realize how much I miss being…_angry_." She shook her head. "But I don't hate you…why can't I _hate_ you?"

She turned up the volume of the set. "The more I thought about finding mama in Eva though, the less happy I got. That I found her there, that wasn't really proof she cared about me, that I wasn't abandoned. She could've done it all in the name of her work. But this woman…she's_right there_. Holding me. Kissing me."

The tears Asuka shed when she had first watched the home movie returned, and she blinked furiously to rid herself of them. She let out a broken chuckle when she dared to watch her favorite part, and said, "Look at that! I'm trying so hard to get away, and she won't let me go. Not for the world. Not for anything. She won't leave me alone." When the Second Child chuckled again, Mariko let loose a sudden deep sob.

"It's _pity_, Mariko. I pity Shinji now, for the first time. He doesn't have this, because his asshole father stole everything that reminded him of his wife. I have proof, _proof_ that mama was alive and that she loved me with everything she had."

The Sixth Child's hands balled into white-knuckled fists over her bowed face. "Shut up. Please. Shut _up_."

"I can see her for what she was, finally. Not just impressions or horrible memories. Her hanging by her neck with her tongue sticking out. Just proof. Shinji doesn't have that. Never will."

Asuka swallowed and braced herself. "How about you, Mariko? What about _your_ mom? Feelings? Impressions? Horrible memories?"

"Mom hid me from everything," Mariko calmly, immediately answered, to Asuka's alarm. "But it wasn't because of shame, so I accepted it, accepted there was a good reason because she loved me. She hid me because I was different, I knew, even as a little girl. I forgave her, always." Mariko stood. "But then she tried to kill me. And that was the end of her."

That was when Asuka noticed Mariko wasn't shaking anymore.

That was when Asuka noticed Mariko was holding a knife.

"It's okay, Asuka. Smash it to pieces. It's over for me. Maybe this is what needs to happen for this to end, you know?"

"No. I don't know," said the German teenager. "I don't know what's going to happen next. I don't' know how to stop you, exactly. But that doesn't mean I can't be prepared."

Asuka set the camera down on an adjacent shelf, and used that same hand to reach behind her jean shorts. It came back around in an effortless, practiced motion, the object it produced causing Mariko's pretty face to pinch into a supremely undignified expression.

"You know that all Nerv guns are deactivated off-base."

"Yeah, I know." The Second Child peered at Mariko beyond the barrel of the GLOCK 37. "All_Nerv_ guns."

"This…isn't going to end well. Is it?" Mariko's voice was dead now, its heartless resignation creeping through Asuka's mind like a slow infection. "Whatever happened to 'clean and elegant, without waste'?"

Asuka just snorted. "Oh, _fuck_ that. I just say that when I get cocky. I've never won clean, not once, ever in my whole life. Did Shinji tell you we had worked together to beat an Angel, and we trained a _week_ just to walk in unison? Hell, I couldn't even hula-hoop when I first tried, nearly tore my ACL mastering that plastic fucker. So I'm guessing I'll have to tear something else to get one over on you."

Asuka's shoulder twitched as the kilogram weight at the end of her fulcrum became one-point three kilograms, one-point seven, one-point nine…"Put the knife down, and it won't have to be your new asshole." Two-point four.

With all the life of a week-old carcass, Mariko said, "I'm not going to be put away in some white box with no windows."

"_Be good for just a few more minutes, okay, darling?_" Kyoko gently reassured her fussy toddler. "_We'll be going soon._"

"Mariko, you don't have to go there, just away from here. And you will, and if you can't do it under your own power, I'll see you off on my own."

"_I promise_," Kyoko said.

"I always keep my promises."

Mariko took a step forward, and Asuka kept her promise.

* * *

Laughing with a mouthful of food was something Maya's traditionalist mother had frowned up upon, expressing her displeasure to her three young children in needlessly pedantic, yawn-inducing tirades. Bits of waffle flew from her mouth as one memory came to her, of mom vainly trying to keep from laughing at dinner when her brother Kenta came home one day with, what was quite simply, the worst haircut in the history of the Ibuki lineage.

Her shoulders were still bouncing as she took another mouthful, her lips still curled upward as her cell phone vibrated on her kitchen table. Not bothering to drop the fork, she chewed, flipping the phone open with her free hand.

"Yes, this is Dr. Ibuki. Hello, Agent Ch…no, he isn't here. I don't know where they are, probably home. School's been out for maybe three hours…she doesn't, no. No. Is, wait, is there a prob-"

As she listened, stern professionalism began to correct her posture. She wasn't smiling anymore.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN?"

The fork clattered to the floor.

"Right, call their_cell_ phones. That's the only way you'd get through to Shinji, anyway…I'm _not_ panicking. Patch me through on a secure line, they don't know your voice."

In the second it should have taken to contact Shinji and Asuka, Maya Ibuki considered the most succinct way of delivering the vital information.

_This is taking too long_, came the thought, harried, frustrated, fearful.

At last, a phone rang.

Somewhere in her house.

At once the elegant words she had prepared to speak to her charges were replaced by just one…

* * *

"Scheisse."

There was nothing else to say, that could be said. No word was more apt, no phrase more eloquently designed to summarize the depth of the…the…fucked-upness of the current situation.

Scheisse. Mariko had stepped forward. Scheisse. Asuka, as skilled at firing a weapon as she was at solving algebraic equations, discharged twice at point-blank range. Scheisse. Mariko was still standing, staring and smiling apologetically behind a genesis of refractive ripples only now beginning to disperse at their translucent hexagonal fringes…

SCHEISSE.

"It…probably won't make you feel any better," Mariko began, green eyes so very exhausted, "but I have no idea how I do that."

"No shit?" was all a wide-eyed Asuka could muster as she lowered the useless steel in her hand. This was yet another of those horrible days, where the worst nightmares were realized in constant, successive waves and it was the first that Asuka could see coming. She liked it better when she was blissfully ignorant of their approach. Dazed, she flashed a glance down to the ringing cell phone in her pocket, for only a moment.

Just long enough.

Asuka tried parrying but her shoulder blades crashed into a wall as Mariko filled her field of vision with godless speed. The thrust came low and hard and out of blind instinct Asuka's free hand shot out to deflect it. She slapped Mariko's hard wrist, succeeding only in altering the trajectory by a fraction.

All conscious thought vaporized when something cold slid between her floating ribs and she was back in the plug again bleeding to death by the pint a thousand knives ripping at her belly and eating her eye laughing like white wolves and chewing her guts held in only by her suit and her arm split like a ripe melon rose to blow her brains out at this close a range _no one_ would survive it and Mariko _ducked_-

Asuka's arm went entirely numb when Mariko reared back and smashed her own forearm into hers, sending the GLOCK flying across the living room. The blade slid out when the black-haired girl's backward momentum carried her away from her panicked prey. Asuka staggered away from the wall with a hacking wet cough, and finally crashed to the floor in a boneless heap.

Asuka's whole side was hot, cold, damp. Damp. She sensed a dozen different things and none of them were pleasant. She opened her eyes. Why was it so hard? Her legs were kicking slowly, pushing her weight across the floor in a modified army crawl. Where was she going?

"Where are you going, Asuka?" Someone asked. Oh yeah, Mariko, the one that stabbed her. "This is the first time I've ever been able to talk about mom. Don't you wanna listen?" Her voice was closer now, and when Asuka painfully rotated so that her elbows propped her up, she stared into Mariko's green eyes. They were filled with gratitude for some reason.

_My phone is still ringing. The movie's still on._

She backpedaled on her palms, Mariko advancing slowly now, patiently. "Don't look at me like that, Asuka. It breaks my heart. I know how you get when you don't win. It's not your fault. You didn't know what you were up against. _I'm_ the failure, Asuka. Me and all my sisters."

So loose now, was the young woman.

_Like an animated doll._

"You know, the people at Nerv back then, they never told me what they made me for." She shrugged as if a puppeteer pulled a string connected to her shoulder. "They didn't bother telling us why we weren't good enough."

She continued stalking Asuka, whose hazy mind tried to process what the girl just told her. The Second Child's palm slapped against a floor bereft of carpeting; they were in the kitchenette now. The refrigerator hummed indifferently as Asuka looked at her attacker who was, for some reason, slapping the flat of the blade against her head.

"When I look back on it," Mariko reflected, "what they did –even before they got rid of us- was evil on some level I couldn't reach if I tried. Even with mom, the closest thing I ever got to being a normal kid was getting a room at her house. And even then she rarely let me out for anything other than going to Nerv for more tests. I think that's what _really_ made me sick, staying in that damned room."

Mariko drew a silver edge lightly across her damp forehead as if dipping a quill in a vat of red ink. "Did she give birth to me? No. But she would do everything for me that I asked. I never had to cry myself to sleep, she was always there with hugs and kisses. I guess moms are like that everywhere, huh, Asuka?"

The injured young woman was about to say something until she breathed and her side seemed to erupt in flames. She cried out instead, completely unprepared for the intensity of the pain.

"She spent almost all her free time in there with me. Just reading and talking, always holding me like I was going to slip away. She bought me that camera, to take pictures of things passing by my windows. She'd grab my face and make _sure_ I was looking her dead in the eye when she said she loved me. She said it, everyday, all the time. For _years_. She'd sleep in there with me, all the time, crying for me.

"But. Whenever I asked her to take me somewhere, or just go outside, she would say," Mariko's voice went an octave lower, "'You're in the middle of the desert. What you see out your window isn't any different than anything you'd see for hundreds of miles around'…" _Every_ muscle in Mariko's body became steel wire. "**_BUT I WANTED TO SEE IT!_**"

Asuka flinched and then slipped on something slick below her palm. She knew what it was, didn't bother to look down. Just keep moving. Just get away. Somehow. She coughed again, and the copper fumes in the back in her throat were actually joined by blood now.

"_Why_ was she taking that from me? Why was I her prisoner? You _know_, Asuka? All that love and I couldn't go outside? That shit doesn't mesh! Even if it was just dirt and rattlesnakes and jackelopes for ten THOUSAND miles around, I wanted to see it!

"You know what that told me? It told me I wasn't supposed to be there. Why were my sisters waiting in some orange tank? For what? For me to die? For someone to kill _me_ so _they_ can be the ones to be poked and prodded and have needles jabbed into their arms and legs and necks? So they can sit next to a window for years like some criminal?"

"Are…are you asking me?" Asuka finally managed when Mariko paused for a breath, a thin red line trickling down the corner of the red head's frowning mouth. "H-how the _fuck_ would _I_ know?"

They were halfway through the kitchen now, and Asuka's hand rose to the counter. Tentatively and then with a strength she surprised herself with, she began to rise from the crimson-streaked floor, catching herself when a foot slid over a slick patch. She wanted to throw up, but gritted her teeth and managed to swallow the bile as she now stepped backwards, bent at her red waist at an obtuse angle.

"I suppose you wouldn't know," Mariko admitted as she continued the slow pursuit. "I think I should've been happy when they died. But I couldn't _hate_ them. I _didn't_ hate them." She pounded a fist between her breasts, ruining her white shirt with bloody paw prints. "I _felt_ them die. They didn't even have_souls_ but I felt them vanish like they never existed. I…I_screamed_ for them, Asuka! And mom came running into my room and I was screaming about how all my sisters were gone, that someone had killed all of them."

Some part of Asuka –the part that was not stabbed and profusely bleeding- sympathized with the unstable young woman, whose composure further buckled with each outlandish revelation.

"She had the nerve to_hug me_." Venom and vulnerability warred in Mariko's wavering tone. "I didn't even see the needle. I felt it enter my…personal space, before it got to my neck." Her lips pulled back in a snarl, the first time her outside appearance matched her actions. "I shoved her with the light of my soul and she _flew_. Out the door, down the stairs…" She gasped. "…AND THEN I DIDN'T FEEL _ANYTHING_ FROM HER!"

Mariko swallowed as her head dipped. For a moment, Asuka forgot to retreat; she watched as hiccupping sobs worked the Sixth Child's shoulders as a hand came to wipe at wet eyes obscured by long black bangs. Mariko looked at her, and Asuka instantly found herself and took another small step back.

"I walked down the stairs and looked at her. And I think that maybe she wanted me to do it. But it _kills_ me because I don't know _why_! Why would she want to make me sick? She made it so that she was the only thing I _had_. Didn't she want to stay with me? Wasn't I worth it? Didn't she want me? That's why I bothered taking her picture, anyone's picture. They don't leave me that way. They stay with me. _Forever_."

Mariko's hiccupping weeping turned into laughter as she ran a blood-soaked hand through her short locks. "I left after that. Ran. H-how was I supposed to know that a child isn't supposed to make it that far in the desert?"

Asuka's phone rang a second time. She seethed as the hole in her side delivered a healthy surge of pain, and shook her head for some reason. Kyoko laughed again in the living room, but the sound seemed so far away. Asuka's hand tracked backwards over the counter, running across an electrical cord…

"You know they never even looked for me, Asuka? They didn't care how I disappeared, as long as I wasn't coming back. So, can you imagine the look on my face when Maya and Hyuga showed up at my high school? I played it cool and waited it out, somehow. They had me alone nine, ten times." She chuckled awkwardly. "I started to think they didn't know who I was, not who I _really_ was."

Mariko breathed. Asuka prepared. "I don't think it was a coincidence, now. I think this Hyuga guy wanted me to kill Shinji, in case he fucked up. I _still_ felt free, though. No one was trying to kill me here. It was getting easier every day. And then I could tell you things and control it. BUT JIN JUST WOULDN'T SHUT THE FUCK _UP_ ABOUT HIS DAMNED MOM! WHY DID HE SAY I REMINDED HIM OF HER? WHY'D HE TEST ME?"

Then Mariko looked through her with eyes so wide Asuka feared they would fall out of the American's head. "I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS!"

"Then _don't_," was the simple response, plea.

"It's too late." A slow shake of the head. "It's too late. I was a fool to think I could dream like a normal girl."

Mariko held out a hand.

"Asuka…"

It was sticky and smeared with Asuka's congealing blood.

"I know how to do this so that it won't hurt…"

Mariko Ashley Buick's face wore a pleading expression, a mother's expression.

"Don't move."

Despite the advice, Asuka moved a lot.

As the wounded pilot reached into the knife drawer she just tore open, Mariko came in to finish her…and then staggered as the full coffee pot in Asuka's other hand smashed into her unprotected face. Asuka herself recoiled but kept her feet as sheets of lukewarm Mocha blend splashed her and drenched her reeling attacker.

Asuka's wild eyes lingered on Mariko as she escaped the kitchen, then flew open when something with a predator's teeth bit into her bare foot. She tumbled back into the living room with a cry. Her fingers immediately went to the shard of glass lodged in her naked sole, but were not at the wound a second before Mariko's foot crashed into her ribcage.

"WHY DO THEY ALWAYS_MOVE_?"

Asuka responded in a most appropriate manner, jamming the bloody shard into Mariko's ankle and causing its gasping owner to buckle. The Second Child leapt to standing on her good foot and half ran, half limped to something in the hallway that birthed the germ of a plan in the periphery of her near-panicked mind. The nightstand that collided with the back of her head nearly dislodged it.

Again crumbling to the floor she felt exhausted for the first time, her reserves leaking out of her wounded side, seeping into the cream fibers of the carpet. Now streaks of red paint appeared beneath Asuka as she was dragged backwards by her ankles.

"WHY DID YOU MOVE, ASUKA? DO YOU _LIKE_ HURTING ME?"

Molten steel inside her back stole Asuka's breath and she forced her eyes not to roll into her cloudy head when the blade escaped.

"WHY COULDN'T YOU HELP ME?"

If the first jag produced the piercing scream lodged in Asuka's throat, the second one unleashed it. There was defiant power in that tortured, earsplitting wail; it permeated every square centimeter of the air surrounding her and somehow she absorbed it and used it to fuel the primal sound until it was all but self-perpetuating. She siphoned off kilowatts of it to wheel onto her ruined back and buck her hips to send the maniac above her sprawling forward and to one side. Mariko caught herself with a bloody planted hand.

Perfect.

Asuka instantly trapped Mariko's wrist with one palm as her opposite shoulder launched her other palm at Mariko's locked elbow. It connected with a savage wet snap, and it was Mariko's turn to scream.

Asuka turned from the teenager clambering backwards off of her. Her adrenalin pushed through her extremities and fought against the dizziness attempting to spin her in the corridor like a cement mixer. As she crawled, hacking, gurgling coughs ripped wet red flecks from the roof of her mouth and through her crusted lips. As Asuka lurched her side protested vehemently. Twin pools of liquid ice pyrolyzed the fang wounds in her ravaged back, and still she crawled because she was almost there.

Asuka could finger the cool fringes of it with quivering digits. They slid off a smooth edge, but she inched closer, panting as fatigue and blood loss began to overcome instinct. This _had_ to work. It had to. Shinji wasn't going to find her like Yukie found Jin. She wasn't angry at him anymore.

**I promise, one day, you're going to walk out that door and when you come back, I won't be here.**

She wanted his Miso soup. She wanted his pancakes.

**One day soon, Shinji. I promise you.**

She wanted to stay.

She got it.

An obscene force crashed into her and she blacked out.

"_Wake up, Asuka. We're going home_."

Asuka did what mama told her. Mariko looked down at her with an unidentifiable expression, straddling her with the blade poised to strike at the end of her good arm.

"Smile," said Asuka, and they both brought their weapons to bear.

* * *

"Sir? Which flower are you looking at particularly?"

"Um…" Shinji answered gracefully. He pointed. "Those."

The woman tucked a lone grey strand beneath her daisy-print do-rag and followed the young man's finger. "The Chamomile, sir?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Which kind?" She asked with infinite patience.

"Uh, what kinds are there?"

"We have Wild Chamomile, Sweet Chamomile, German Chamomile, Roman-"

"German."

She smiled at his decision, reaching up to grab a bouquet.

"There are prettier flowers, young man. I assume these are for someone special?"

"She's very special," he admitted with complete sincerity.

"Sometimes these flowers are used in teas or in balms to relieve pain. I hope…she's not in some pain?"

"No," he said, smiling warmly. "But maybe this'll help her feel better all the same."

* * *

Asuka peered upward with an eye closed. The open one stared, frozen and fighting the maddening urge to also shut. With effort, she drew a breath past her lips and the phlegm on her tongue. The weight above still hadn't moved. A patch of her sight was lost to a blotch that covered her field of vision like a puzzle piece. Another drop, one more, and she finally lowered the camera.

Mariko was still there. Her wrist was still held to the blade in her mouth.

Something warm and wet hit Asuka's cheek in a thin, steady trickle.

"_You're heavier than you look, you know that?_" Kyoko said.

End of Fourth Exposure

A/N: Um…there's one more chapter left. What you see as chapter seven was not originally included when I first wrote the story. There's just so much damn_'splainin_ to do.

Hopefully, the next and final chapter will wrap up everything nicely. Think of it as the two-hour long season finale of a show that is usually one hour long. That's right, people. Chapter 14 will be double-size.

Am I the only one who thinks that Kaji is the R. Kelly of the Evangelion Universe? Seriously, he's a known womanizer, he hangs around 14 year-old girls, and his initials are R.K.

_Case __closed_.

Thank you for reading and your criticism. Ja.

Next Chapter: The Final Negative

Hey James! Beat Down 2: The Hurtening


	14. The Final Negative

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is a Studio Gainax production, its characters created by Hideaki Anno. They say the word, and this story ceases to exist.

It is a sad commentary on the life of Asuka Langley Sohryu that Mariko Buick is not the worst thing to have ever happened to her…

In the Dark Room: The Final Negative

By MidnightCereal

**(TWO) NEW MESSAGES**

**FIRST MESSAGE RECEIVED: SIX THIRTY-TWO P.M. MONDAY, APRIL TWENTY-THIRD. SIXTEEN SECONDS:**

"_SHIT. Asuka, it's Maya. Look, I don't have time to explain, but you need to get away from Mariko right now. Shinji too, if he's with you. If Mariko's there, make something up. I don't care what. Just…make it good and get away. Now. Someone's coming for you now. Just please be alright. Do it, Asuka."_

**END OF FIRST MESSAGE**

**SECOND MESSAGE RECEIVED: SIX THIRTY-FOUR P.M. MONDAY, APRIL TWENTY-THIRD. TWENTY SECONDS:**

"_ASUKAAAAA! PICK UP YOUR DAMN PHONE! MARIKO'S A PYSCHO! SHE'S NOT NORMAL, ASUKA. SHE'S A NERV CLONE, SHE'S JUST LIKE KAWORU! SHE'S KILLED BEFORE AND SHE PROBABLY KILLED JIN TAKASHI AND SHE'LL KILL YOU TOO! OH GOD, WHY AREN'T YOU PICKING UP? PICK UP, YOU LITTLE BRAT, WHAT'S GOING ON? ANSWER THE PHONE, ASUKA, ANSWER THE FU_-"

**END OF SECOND MESSAGE**

"Thanks for the advanced warning, _guardian_," Asuka intoned, unable to find the strength to make her words sufficiently sarcastic. She cut the power to her numbing shoulder and the phone smacked her thigh as she dropped her heavy hand. She moved to the wall like a woman of seventy instead of seventeen. Contact between her back and the cool surface elicited a sharp cry, but she bore it in exchange for the privilege of resting her body…she was so tired.

Her eyes incessantly negotiated with her unconscious so that she found herself constantly staring at the back of their lids. Each time she opened them fiercely to look at Mariko, leaning against the opposite wall in the apartment's back hallway, and also bleeding to death.

"Who was that?" Mariko asked. Her hollow voice chilled Asuka's bones; either that or the onset of shock, beginning to wrack her body in subtle but growing spasms.

"Maya." Duh. Asuka had said 'guardian'…was Mariko really that slow? But then again, she was feeling slow, also.

"Oh…" the other bleeding young woman began. "Advanced warning." Mariko slowly pushed the words out her mouth, past the gash in her cheek and her dirty lips. "They know."

It wasn't a question. Asuka could only shrug awkwardly, painfully in a drawn-out motion that again made her aware of the slick slit in her side. "They probably would've found out sooner if the Second Branch hadn't vanished."

"Second…do you mean Nerv-Nevada?"

"Mariko, there hasn't been any 'Nerv-Nevada' in more than two years."

"It…it just _vanished_?"

"Isn't that what I just _said_?" Asuka nearly spat, relieved she could still feel irritation. She shivered.

"How are you doing?" asked Mariko.

The red-head shrugged again. "Yukie was upset for some reason today, but she's moody like that and I didn't worry about it much. We got our history tests back, and I felt I did better than a ninety-two, but apparently the Moops didn't invade eight century Spain. The Moors did. I'm bleeding from three knife wounds. How are _you_ doing?"

"My hair smells like coffee. I got a stinger in my elbow. My wrist is itchy." Mariko looked down in the red slash below her paling palm. She frowned. "Should it take this long?"

"Quitter," chastised Asuka.

"It's for the best, I think. If I live…they'll never let me out." The Sixth Child kept her mouth open as if to speak, but paused…and then the look of realization flooded her face, implications dawning on her. "I don't want to die, but…"

Asuka stared balefully at the black, red, a brown blur she was fairly certain was Mariko Buick.

"I should hate you…_so_ much, you know that? But…ah!" She peeled herself off of her support to totter forward until she could crawl on her hands and knees toward Mariko. She stooped at the American's side, Asuka's pale knees just outside of the pool below the other teenager's wrist. "But I can't choose my friends. I promised to help you, didn't I? And I always keep my…are you _crying_?"

Mariko was smiling, her weeping permeated with the unmistakable sound of laughter. "I just didn't know," she managed shakily as Asuka began to loosen her belt. "I tried being nice to you, I tried understanding you. I didn't think I was getting through, Asuka. I thought that, that all you saw was those pictures. You saw the worst part of me. Everyone gets to keep their ugliness on the inside." Asuka was silent as she noosed the belt around Mariko's thin bicep. "You're friends with me."

"Welcome to Nerv," said Asuka, tightening the belt around the artery. "If you dig enough, you find out everyone here is ugly as sin. Raise your arm and keep it there." Mariko obeyed, and Asuka dragged herself back to her side hallway.

"Asuka…I just wish I knew that if I lived, whether or not I'd be able to get out again one day."

"Did you ever consider that maybe you don't deserve to know?"

"Yeah. But the most selfish…you know the rest." Mariko shivered. "Is it getting cold in here? Is it me?"

"It's you, it's me, it's hypovolemic shock."

"You know everything, you know that?"

"I'd like to believe that, but I'm a long way from forty-two."

"Of course, Asuka, you're only sevent…wait, was that a joke? That was a joke, wasn't it?"

"Yeah."

"Well I…don't…get…iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii…" And Mariko's last word faded with the strength in her muscles and the light in her green eyes. Invisible strings above her snapped, no longer able to support the weight of consciousness, and she slumped sideways. Doubling over awkwardly, she painted a red wide arc on the wall behind her with a bloody cheek before finally coming to rest facedown against a baseboard.

"Someangerrrrl," Asuka slurred to no one in particular. Something passed though her as she peered at the still form of Mariko Buick. It was probably annoyance, because she was the one that deserved to pass out…

And suddenly she was tearing her eyes open again. It was harder this time. She was warm when her eyes were closed. Mr. Hritsu's little boy was again stomping on the floor above them.

**If Angels had done this to me, it would be so much easier to deal with.**

What a crock of shit. If she knew it was going to end like this, she wouldn't have bothered to have changed the carpet which rushed up to meet her…

* * *

_I gotta pee. I can't do it here, though. Why, again? Oh. That's right. I'm not in a bathroom. I'm in a bed. In a hospital. Something smells like pee, though. Gott in Himmel, I didn't pee myself, did I? No…no, that's not it. Old, old flowers. What kind again? Only one way to know. Well, two. I could ask, too. But I want to know where the bathroom is. I could just ask that, too, but I still need to-_

Asuka opened her eyes.

"Chamomile."

"Oh, Asuka! You're up again?" said the sun-drenched Maya-sounding blob hovering over her.

"…again?" Asuka asked, her broken voice sounding parched and foreign.

The Maya blob became oddly tense. "What's wrong? What do you mean 'again'? You don't _remember_?"

"Relax...relax, I'm…I'm just gathering my wits. You'd be forgetful too if you've been out for…what day is it?"

"Thursday. The Thursday after the Thursday of the week you were put in here. So ten days."

"Well, no wonder I have to go to the bathroom."

Suddenly the lines on her guardian's face came into focus, and they stenciled an embarrassed countenance on her young reddening skin. "Well, that wouldn't be the reason." Redder. "You couldn't go yourself, so you've had help. The nurses-"

"-will be completely safe if you don't tell me who they are."

"Don't be like that, please?"

"Okay."

"You made that really easy, Asuka, thank you."

"No, it's just…there are things…"

"Your wounds are going to heal up nice. That's what Dr. Marshall says, and if you believe him, you can believe he can minimize the scar tissue-"

"What's the point? Have you ever seen my stomach?"

"Yes."

"Then you know that three more scars aren't going to hurt. I'm not worried about that." The bedridden pilot's eyebrows arched as a memory touched her. "I asked you about Yukie and Mariko the last time I was up."

"You'll have to ask Shinji about Yukie. But they moved Mariko as soon as she stabilized and they repaired the tendons in her wrist."

"Where is she disappearing to?"

Maya's face reflected the sunlight streaming through the suite's windows. And hurt.

"Asuka, Mariko isn't…why would you think she's going to dis-"

"Because it's much better for Nerv if Mariko dies in an Eva-related accident in the line of duty, than letting it be known that they handed the keys to a super-powered bio-weapon over to a murdering psychopath."

"Are you serious? You think that'll happen?"

"I wouldn't if I didn't know how things work around here. But I do. So it makes sense to get rid of her."

Asuka glanced languidly up to her guardian to find Maya wearing something she thought the older woman never would; a full-blown scowl.

"That is _not_ the way things work here now, okay? Not as long as I'm heading Project E. Not as long as Commander Ikari stays dead." It was apparent that recognition suddenly found Maya Ibuki. "Hyuga's the only reason we ever recruited her. He recovered Gendo's old data logs, and that's how he found out about the Second Branch, how they were using Mariko as the basis for a dummy plug in parallel with their S-2 engine experiments."

The young doctor wiped absently at some lint on a pants leg. Her scowl deepened. "The scientists in Nevada kept Mariko a secret. The Commander found out anyway, deemed it a danger to his scenario-"

"And ordered the clones destroyed. Mariko told me that part. She told me how she got away. How'd Hyuga find out? Foster home admittances?"

Maya nodded. "And she made the local news the day she was found."

**How was I supposed to know a child isn't supposed to make it that far in the desert?**

"That was just the beginning. Hyuga tracked her," Maya glanced out into the hallway. "Starting about two years ago. He noticed that wherever she went, people died. I don't even think he would've noticed had she not lived a lot of those years in rural areas, in America, in Japan. The years before Mariko moved to Takayama they averaged half a murder annually. Four people were killed the year she arrived. The next year she left for Nagoya, and the number dropped to one."

"So he knew what she was doing?"

"He knew. Because of those things. Because he knew from Gendo's files on Mariko that she has Trisomy X syndrome. Having an extra X-chromosome usually wouldn't do anything to a girl except make her taller. But if you splice human and Angel DNA…that's just a whole new world."

Something wasn't meshing. "How is it that Rei and Kaworu didn't have this problem?"

"Kaworu was a boy, so he didn't have an extra X-chromosome. How many scientists do you know of Dr. Akagi's caliber?"

Asuka rolled her eyes. Ouch! Couldn't she do anything that didn't involve her side flaring in pain? "I don't know any scientists, Maya."

"Well I do. Dozens. And I still can't name anyone that was such a perfectionist. Commander Ikari, _maybe_. And maybe the person that Mariko was based on had Trisomy-X. I know for a fact Yui Ikari didn't. Did…Mariko tell you she wasn't the first?"

"No."

"The first clone killed a top geneticist a minute after they removed her from the holding tank. She crushed Robert Quathme's head into a singularity with a localized A.T. Field and they destroyed her on the spot."

"He _did_ want her to kill Shinji."

"Mariko Buick was the most stable. They thought that if they removed enough stimuli and provided her with a maternal figure, they would be able to control her. They did, until Gendo visited them."

"So Hyuga gets all the blame, then," Asuka observed, trying vainly to ignore her bladder. "We lucked out for the most part. Why don't I feel so lucky, then?"

"I can't answer that. I _can_ tell you that Mariko's being kept about six kilometers from here, in a U.N.-run asylum. She'll be evaluated during the next few months to see if she's eligible for gene therapy treatment."

"She's at the Damkohler Institute?"

Maya looked mildly surprised. "You've heard of it?"

"I almost ended up there…a while ago."

Asuka's guardian sighed deeply, slowly, then, "You're going to visit her, aren't you?"

The bedridden teen hid her face from Maya, suddenly finding the far wall interHOW LONG HAD SHINJI BEEN SITTING IN THAT CHAIR? Asuka admirably composed herself. He was asleep, and it wasn't as if she had said anything hideously embarrassing.

"Yukie's going to hate me for doing it."

"Yukie won't understand." Maya leaned into whispering range. "We share fucked-up bonds, right?"

Asuka smiled for the first time. "You've been waiting for weeks to throw that one back, haven't you?"

Maya rolled her eyes. "…_Yes_," she admitted with a huff, and without warning then leaned in all the way, brushing back Asuka's red bangs with a hand and kissing the side of her charge's forehead.

"Yeccch…_Maya!_ Did you get that memo about the Japanese shunning public displays of affection?"

Maya shrugged it off as she pulled back and rose from her chair. "You're not Japanese. Besides, none of that really applies to me anymore. I'm retarded."

"You don't need to tell _me_ that." Asuka wiped her forehead with a dry weak hand.

"She's been given designer drugs to inhibit her ability to project A.T. Fields. Surgeons had also implanted a chip in her neck that will temporarily paralyze her if she gets out of control. But be careful, anyway."

"Alright, _mom_."

"I mean it, Asuka."

"You didn't mean it the first time?"

"You two are all I have."

"I…" And before Asuka could reboot and fully digest Maya Ibuki's admission, she watched her back as she stalked briskly to and out the door of her Nerv infirmary suite.

Shinji muttered something unintelligible in the corner.

She lay still and tried to ignore her bladder. And something else…

* * *

A week passed. Asuka was discharged from Nerv Infirmary. Four more weeks passed.

* * *

Kensuke cast a wary eye to the young woman sitting in his passenger seat. She was doing something.

"Hikari, don't open the glove compartment."

Hikari opened the glove compartment. A thick glossy stack of paper spilled onto her lap.

"Don't look at those, you won't like it," Touji Suzahara said somewhere behind Kensuke.

Hikari Horaki utilized the listening skills she had cultivated during her years as a class representative, doing the exact opposite of what her first love advised.

"Kensuke…" she began, furiously blinking. "These women are…not clothed."

The sandy-haired teenager adjusted his glasses and gripped the steering wheel tighter. "Yeah. Um…the articles-"

"-of clothing are missing, I know." She began to browse. "_Jug-a-thon 2012_?" Hikari slipped the top magazine to the bottom of the stack. "_Ai Yuri Aoshi_?" She flipped again. "_Ai Love to Fu_-KENSUKE!"

"Well she _does_!" he shot back. "I _told_ you not to open the glove compartment!"

"And I told you not to look at them," Touji said, glancing sideways at his sister, who flinched at the shouting in her sleep.

"All I wanted was a napkin, Aida, not a look into your…failings."

"You'd think there'd be a napkin in there, somewhere."

Hikari's shoulder length chestnut hair flared behind her as she craned her neck to look questioningly at the eldest (smiling) Suzahara sibling. "Why do you think he would still have napkins in…" And then she stopped talking. And turned back around.

"Does someone need napkins?" Mari groggily asked as she rubbed her eyes.

"No," the other three passengers immediately answered.

"I still got some napkins from that place we stopped at." Mari yawned. "How long ago was that?"

"We're almost there, sis…right, Ken?"

Kensuke groaned and said, "Do you have to pee again? God, Touji, you have the bladder of a mountain vole!"

"Drive, napkin boy," Touji ordered. "Why the hell are you worried about what's coming outta my-"

"_Touji_," Hikari warned.

"Who're you laughing at, little girl?" The black-haired boy asked his giggling sister.

"Heh heh heh…mountain vole," said Mari, shaking a head of short dark hair.

Touji smiled darkly. "Mari…as soon as you fall back to sleep…I'm gonna fart right in your mouth-"

"TOUJI!"

"Hikari, I'm just kidding."

"No he's not," Mari said with a far away look.

* * *

When Dr. Frederick Chilton turned to look at Asuka once more, she promised herself that if he tried to look down her shirt again, she would make him realize the wrong pilot had been institutionalized.

"She's been as well as anyone that's walked or has been walked into Damkohler," he answered her in clear but heavily accented Japanese. Fortunately (for him) his superior leer stayed afloat at eye level, and Asuka used the contact to imply vast cruelties with a narrowed glare. He merely smirked; this was a man who knew the limits of a person and how to tax that boundary without falling victim to recoil.

So Asuka turned her attention forward and continued to walk with him, down a white corridor, past an orderly and nurse scanning a clipboard. There was a door at the end of the antiseptic hallway, and if this visit was the same as the last four, Mariko was going to be at the end of it, outdoors.

"I do not have to remind you not to touch her, and to maintain a distance of four meters, Ms. Sohryu."

"You just did." _You condescending prick._

"There will be two orderlies on standby at all times-"

"Haven't we gone through all this before? If you were as competent an administrator as you pretend to be, you'd know it doesn't really matter how many people you put out there. She can't make A.T. Fields, she's chipped, but she hasn't lost any strength and she's just as fast. If she snaps when you blink, I'm dead. She's only here because she knows she needs to be."

Dr. Chilton chuckled artificially, but Asuka did well not to outwardly bristle.

"Ms. Sohryu, I don't doubt that she knows she belongs here, as I'm equally sure that she knew what it was she was doing to those people. What I know is that somebody cashed in the chips 'Nerv' and 'pilot' and now my hands are tied." He eyed her again, this time with a newfound seriousness. "And if _you_ were the genius everyone claims you were you'd realize the foolhardiness of putting your life in the hands of someone so…mentally deficient."

"Well, I'm sure Mariko feels the same way," Asuka sweetly salvoed.

Before she could realize the crisp image of her fist lodged in his smug face, they were pushing open the heavy door, taking them outside. A large black man to Asuka's left acknowledged them with a bearded grin, and perhaps because of the sleazy jerk to her right, the Second Child immediately liked him when they had first spoken three weeks ago.

"How's it going, Barney?" she asked in perfect English.

"Ms. Sohryu, I'm doing fine." He paused a second with a slight nod, as he always did.

Carefully, smoothly, he pointed to a far edge of the expansive green yard. Beyond his finger was a manicured lawn scarred with concrete pathways, and further away a tree, one of many hugging the perimeter of the space. Beneath it was a sitting woman with short black hair, her slouched posture on the bench ruffling her powder blue scrubs. She was looking away from the institute, the angle of her craned neck implying a gaze leveled at the crater rim far, far above.

"Should anything happen," said Barney, "we are always closer than we look."

She responded with a sincere nod, which served to kindly acknowledge the tall orderly and spite his snobbish superior already turning to reenter the building. She ignored Dr. Chilton and stepped forward onto the green.

* * *

Asuka quickly stepped around to the front of the bench and consciously sat well closer than four meters to Mariko, knowing full well Dr. Chilton was watching her right now.

Mariko's back immediately straightened as she turned to the young German. "Oh! Asuka, you scared me!" She ran a hand through her tousled dark hair, faintly smiling. "I didn't mean to move so fast. It's just…people weren't really able to sneak up on me before, you know?"

"I _do_ know. I was rarely surprised when I was piloting." Asuka discreetly looked the institutionalized teenager over. She was the same. Her hair had already been short, so she was allowed to keep it that way. Mariko was skinny, but she was always skinny, wasn't she? Even the muscle tone had been maintained; Damkohler had no rules prohibiting exercise. Asuka noticed that Mariko's right arm was finally out of the sling, but it was the left the American raised to chest level.

"I told you last time I can control my pinky and ring fingers now?" Mariko cheerfully asked.

"Nope."

"I don't care how much credit they give to me being a fast healer. They did a really good job of fixing the nerve damage." Her fingers danced like a Rockette line through the warm air, her artificial tendons pressing up on the scar tissue. "Why do you think they bothered fixing me up?"

Asuka shrugged. "Does it really matter?"

"How's Shinji?"

"He's a dork."

"What'd he do?"

The red-head snorted. "He's _Shinji_."

"How's…" Mariko closed her eyes for half a moment. "How's Yukie?"

"I don't know."

Mariko looked at her, now frowning slightly. "But, I thought you said you've been talking to her."

"I _have_. But she doesn't really tell me anything. Not yet. You know what I mean. She wants to tell me, but she's not ready. Not yet."

_She might today_, Asuka thought, hoped. Everybody has to tell someone…but if Aki Ando was to be believed, Yukie hadn't mentioned Jin once since it happened. Today she was going to see Yukie. And Aki. And Hikari. And Maya. And Touji and Kensuke…unfortunately. And she was going to see them all right after she left this sad place on the fringes of this resurgent, resilient multifaceted city. Right after she left Mariko.

"I think…"

Those two words snapped Asuka from her reverie and back to the green-eyed girl now directing her gaze directly above her.

"I think…I could stay here, for a long time…I could get better here if I could just take pictures. They won't let me have a camera here."

"You won't need one…not if someone takes pictures for you. You have a monitored account here, so I'll email them to you if I can't put them in your hands."

Mariko's look was pained and she shook her head as if declining a billion-yen note. "Dr. Chilton, he won't let me see them. Everything passes through him."

The expression on Asuka's darkening face was better suited on the cold grey bust of some ancient Valkyrie. "He wouldn't even be around to be a dick if it weren't for me. My scars _own_ him." She smiled. Mariko discreetly inched away. "If he doesn't let you see the photographs I take for you," she intoned menacingly, "_I'm_ going to pass through him."

"_There_ you are," said Mariko unwaveringly, staring a little too intensely for Asuka's liking. "That's the _real_ you." Mariko rubbed the nape of her neck.

* * *

The door to her apartment slid open, and Asuka stared back at the two faces staring out at her from the entry way. She frowned.

"Devil," one of them curtly welcomed.

"Tweedle Dumb," she said back, and looked to the other. "Dumber."

And then despite her best efforts, she followed their lead and smiled brightly.

* * *

With some thick-bassed tune thumping in the living room, Asuka walked into the kitchen to get another soda. So had Yukie.

"We already have one open on the counter," Asuka pointed out.

The class rep pivoted and noticed her friend for the first time, then noticed the half-full container next to the sink. "Thanks, Asuka."

"No problem."

"This is my fourth cup of this stuff. Why haven't I heard of this before?"

"Be careful. You have ten of those you're going to go back in time."

"Damn." Yukie chuckled. She twisted the top off and poured.

"What?"

"Hikari…she's from Tokyo-3…has brown hair down to her shoulder…she's your class representative…one of your best friends…"

…_she went out with a promising brash young athlete with a surprisingly kind heart…_

Yukie stopped pouring. "So you saw her today, huh?"

Asuka tensed as she leaned against the wall –as Yukie took a sip- and prepared; this was it. She was certain the trembling came from the wall buzzing from low frequency vibration. "I saw her. Yeah."

"How was she?" No eye contact yet. The pretty brunette softly swirled the carbonated liquid.

"She was…" Asuka internally cringed. "…good."

Yukie shrugged. "Oh." She shrugged again. "What a shame."

Asuka could only stutter at her friend's barren tone. "Yukie, I …I can't-"

"Did you know?" _Now_ Yukie was looking at her, her cool coal irises gently boring into Asuka as the rhythmic sounds and Mari's bright, innocent laughter fell to the perimeter of Asuka's world. Getting stabbed had felt better.

"Did you know what she was…because you can tell me. It's okay if you did. Because Mariko…we had this soccer game during phys-ed, and she was the striker and came down the field full speed-"

"No."

"I got in her way and she went right through me like I was rice paper-"

"No."

"-and she didn't even slow down."

Asuka was certain Yukie didn't see her swallow. Then she stood away from the wall and lied for a third time. "I didn't know, Yukie."

"Because," Yukie put the cup down, "I'd forgive you if you did. Because what she did to you…she must've been scary as all hell. And we're equals. Right?"

"Right."

"Asuka…did you know?'

"No."

Why was Yukie still looking at her? Finally, the black eyes fell to her cup and her hand followed them. "One day, I'll forgive Mariko, y'know." She drank while Asuka bit her tongue, afraid her words would give her away, would turn the friend standing before her into something else entirely.

"Jin would've forgiven her." Yukie then paused, and percussion replaced her voice before it returned with a soft "Yeah."

"So how are you? Holding up?" The Second Child was anxious to change the subject, however tangentially.

Yukie Utsumi bit her lip as her brow twitched. "Wednesday was bad. Thursday was better. Yesterday was bad." She chuckled, and Asuka could only guess as to how it managed to hold a note of true mirth. "_Man_, am I glad you're having this party today." Her laughter grew like a grease fire, but when Asuka did not join in Yukie extinguished it, left with the thin residue of a smile.

"God, Asuka…it kills me to admit this…but when I crumbled, she was right there. She held me and was saying she was sorry…and I _know_ she meant it. I think she'd make a great mom…isn't that sick?"

"A little," Asuka guiltily admitted…and then instantly regretted when she realized her answer sucked the remaining warmth out of Yukie's smile. "We're going to take a walk tomorrow."

"Okay."

"Just you and me. Turn on your damn phone and keep it on."

"You need something, cutie?" Yukie was addressing someone over Asuka's shoulder.

"Um…" Kensuke looked very lost. "You mean me?"

"Yes, you."

"Yukie, don't encourage him!"

"Aki –is that her name? - she wants to know if you're still trying to play her in Tekken Ten."

Yukie put the cup down before muttering darkly, "No one beats my Heihachi Mishima." She stalked towards the kitchen entrance. "No one."

"That's a yes, then?" Kensuke ventured as Yukie passed him.

She rapped him on the head with a knuckle and a perky "Boop!" and then yelled something threatening at someone in the living room. Threatening sounded good to Asuka…

"Kensuke, don't touch her."

"Why would I? Did you forget who you're talking to?"

"Nope. And yet, you touching her –hypothetically, at least- results in me breaking your back like a dry rice cracker. Hypothetically. Weird, huh?"

"Uh huh…can I have my gun back?"

* * *

It was winding down. The food was consumed and the laughs were had at the expense of the young or old or the timid or the arrogant…

…or those woefully deficient at tenth-generation semi-immersive polygon fighters.

"Why do you suck so much at this, Shinji?" Mari loudly asked, waving her controller around like a magic wand. "You're like the Japanese Charlie Brown or, or something!"

"I _like_ Charlie Brown," he answered while sheepishly rubbing the back of his head.

Touji's voice boomed. "MARI! Will you stop beating that dead horse and get your stuff, already? It's gonna take us forty minutes to get to Aunt Taki's!"

"You might as well, Mari," Shinji interjected. He looked down to the cell phone chiming in his pocket. "I have to take this call, anyway."

Mari pouted. "I _like_ beating horses…"

"Mari, is this your jacket?" her brother asked, picking up the light black windbreaker.

Asuka took her eyes off Shinji's retreating backsi…back…long enough to identify the jacket as Maya's. "Just leave it on the couch. I'll take it to her next time we go to Nerv."

"I didn't take a jacket."

"Well, why the hell _not_, Mari?"

"Because, it's _hot_, because, it's like, a hundred degrees outside all the time, _everywhere_. Because, I woke _up_ sweating-"

"Shut up, because, I'm gonna pop you, because, before we left I _asked_ you-"

Asuka blocked the fledgling argument out and nudged the young woman at her side. "Where's Aki?"

Yukie pointed outside. "She went to the car already, something about giving Kensuke directions to the A-24." Asuka nodded as Shinji came back. Touji stopped fighting with Mari long enough to exchange an awkward, manly hug with the Third Child. "She's going somewhere early tomorrow, so she's in a bit of a rush, too."

"She wouldn't mind waiting just one more minute, would she?" Then without waiting for an answer, "Shinji! Are you done playing grab-ass with your jock?"

"Heh heh heh…" Mari giggled. "Jock."

"Our hug was manly," Shinji grumbled. The Second Child grabbed him by the hand and dragged him towards her room. "Wait there, Yukie!" she yelled over her shoulder, the Suzaharas disappearing in the entry way with a final wave.

"Close the door."

Shinji did as Asuka commanded. "What're you looking for?"

"Hold your horses." She threw another wrinkled shirt to the wayside, and after another second found and grabbed a small white box.

"Here," she said, shoving it into Shinji's empty hands.

He blinked. "These…these are-"

"I know, Shinji."

"-White Day chocolates."

"I know, Shinji."

"But White Day was almost-"

"I _know_, Shinji."

"-three months ago. And I'm supposed to give them to you-"

"They're for Yukie."

He blinked.

"Shinji, _what_? Just…just _give_ them to her, okay?"

"Are you sure she won't get the wrong idea? Is she going to start crying?"

"Give her _some_ credit, Third."

"What about…I thought you didn't want to share-"

"Give _me_ some credit, okay?" And Asuka opened her door and pushed the confused young man out of it and back towards the living room. A final shove-off imparted enough momentum to propel the boy halfway to Yukie, who watched the two tumble into the hallway with a bemused expression. Then she looked at the box in his hands. Shinji started talking.

Across the room, Asuka practically felt the other girl's dark eyes on her; she would've probably seen them too had she not been looking away and intensely at the floor. Shinji wheezed from what was probably Yukie's bone-crushing hug, which Asuka was quite certain, even without looking, was anything but manly.

Sensing it was okay to look up, Asuka smiled back at her friend and waved goodbye to her…

…and sincerely hoped that Yukie Utsumi would never find out just how much she had contributed to the absolute worst moment in the brunette's entire life.

They were alone now.

"Thank you. I always felt bad about not being able to return Yukie's chocolates."

"Shut up, I didn't do it for you," she muttered, folding her arms over her chest. "She just needed to feel good about something…and you didn't have to enjoy it so much!" She kicked the carpet with a bare heel. "I saw you grab her ass."

He gave a disbelieving laugh and shook his head. "_What?_ Asuka, I …you were looking away the _whole_ time-"

"I know what a grope sounds like!" She narrowed her eyes. "You had class rep pie on a window sill, and you couldn't wait to get a taste of that sweet filling, could you?"

"Are you chewing me out or selling strudel?"

"Don't joke about this. You've been drooling over her for years, and now that you…what's wrong?"

He was pointing at something. Behind her.

"Um…" Hikari espoused. "I had to use the restroom." She was not looking at Shinji. "Where's my ride?"

* * *

_Now_ they were alone.

Asuka herself was alone, actually; Shinji was somewhere finishing his cleanup effort. She was already done, had left the vacuum in the middle of the hallway to peer out over the balcony, where she had an excellent view of the giant famous hole. It glowed from the busy night life at its center, the intensity fading to black at an invisible boundary. From there the stars took over.

Somewhere in between sat Asuka's tenuous state of mind. There was levity in thinking of the day's events, in the excruciating mundanity of it all. No…mundane was the wrong word. _Normal_ was a better one. It felt normal confiding in Hikari and berating Shinji. It felt normal arguing with Touji and Kensuke and rolling her eyes whenever they drooled all over Misato…

Instantly the buoyancy of that nostalgia was counterbalanced by the persistent gravity derived from the knowledge that some form of trauma had found her and those around her once more. Asuka had locked eyes with Yukie Utsumi and felt judgment being passed every second, had locked eyes with Mariko to find equal parts limitless compassion, gratitude, and an intoxicating lethal sickness.

A voice, behind her. "What?"

"I said," Shinji reiterated, "that I don't think we were the only ones that had a party. The trash bin outside is full." He stepped out onto the elevated path, walking up to the railing a resting his elbows in a manner identical to Asuka's.

She looked at him. "I gotta say, I'm grateful for Aida lending me his piece and everything, but if he took one more damn picture I was going to put his ass in there, too. The only person more prolific than that guy is Mariko." Asuka absently tugged at her short sleeve. "They'd make a great couple."

Shinji wore an unusual expression; sly bemusement. "He said to me, 'A tall attractive girl that treats you with respect and wants Asuka dead? What's the bad news?'"

Asuka stared. "He _said_ that?"

Sly bemusement gave way to palpable anxiety. "Uh, yeah. Yeah."

"I _knew_ I should've kicked his ass on principle!"

Perhaps anticipating an ass-bruising, Shinji half-turned to face her and put his hands up. "Asuka, he…he was just joking. You weren't even supposed to hear that!"

It was her turn to put her hands up. "That's par for the course for a stooge. I know a joke when I hear one."

"You're…not angry?" Slowly, slowly, the hands came back down.

The Second Child just gave an exaggerated huff. "Shinji, if he really hated me, do you think he would've loaned me that gun?" Her shoulders jumped. "Besides, getting mad over something like that…just seems stupid now."

"Mari's gotten big, hasn't she?"

"I know!" she answered, nodding vigorously. "What's it been, three years? You can hardly tell anything's happened to her…uh, I mean…" And then she stopped, for many reasons, and ushered half-lidded eyes to the floor.

"Yukie's going to feel better one day."

She smiled, but it was a timid thing, hidden by bangs of auburn hair. "You're finally making it a habit of saying the right thing, Shinji?"

"I said it because it's true." His voice was closer now. "She has good friends, and she'll get better. We have to make her see that."

"And Mariko?"

"Mariko's not Yukie."

"Duh, Shinji." She looked into his face, closer than it had been when she had last been looking up. "She's like Rei, _way_ too much like her."

"She's not, Asuka. I don't think she is."

"You know _how_ I meant that. Don't play dumb." She scanned his face, and was at no other moment more grateful that Shinji's mother had left just enough of herself in her son to dilute Gendo Rokubungi. "There's just something that I hate about liking her. I just wish I could choose the people I like."

"Oh…" was all he said. He looked away, smiling at something.

"What do you mean 'Oh'? I don't mean you, dork!"

"So…you're staying here?" He was looking at her now.

"Guess, Shinji." No, he was looking down to their hands, which had somehow become connected.

"Asuka, I was just at the trash."

"So?"

"My hands are dirty."

"My hands are dirty, too. What are you afraid of?"

"A lot of things."

But apparently one of those things was not leaning into her, and pressing his lips to hers. No fireworks, no surge of warmth from within her. But as she pulled away, as his lips peeled from her own, she knew everything had changed again. Lost in him, she nearly started as his voice penetrated the thick pause that had fallen between them.

"Misato. She…I don't recall everything she said to me right before she died." He swallowed, maintaining a visibly tenuous composure. "I remember…she was trying to get me to want to live." His voice dropped to a whisper. "I remember how her lips tasted…how her blood tasted on my tongue and how it woke me…please don't hate me. That's what broke me, made me want to fight again. Don't hate me. Not for that. Please."

The young woman in his arms could only stare and slowly shake her head no.

No. She didn't hate him, not for that. She put herself in Shinji's shoes, Kaji in Misato's, and she knew she was finally beyond that kind of jealousy.

"She shoved me into the elevator, to the cage, to fight. She _left_ me, with her _cross_, and her _blood_, and her _taste_ and smell. But somehow she smiled." The memory of it caused his eyes to slowly shut, and now he shook his head. "I didn't know that normal people could smile like that, the way she did. It was filled with love for me. Unconditional. For me and for the people that I love, for my children. Kaworu smiled like that, and when I asked her to, so did Rei."

She said nothing and silently crushed an obsolete animosity; save it for another day, a less important day.

"Asuka…I heard you say you had wanted to leave. Mariko almost took you away, and all I could think while I was waiting to hear if you'd live, was that I'd never see you smile like that. You were going to leave, just like Misato, and Kaworu and Rei, but I'd never see that look on you. Do you know how much that scared me?"

His hand gently ran through her hair as she finally spoke. "No," she answered.

"Even if things don't work between us," he said, "I want to see that smile. I know it's in you. I have to see it, and I think you need to realize that you're capable of it."

She could only nod, and say, "Okay."

"…I want to do the rest with you."

"Okay."

They breathed together outside and after a minute they had remained still long enough for Asuka to feel his heartbeat through her own breast. _Now_ she was getting warm…and then he nearly ruined it all by talking.

"Asuka?"

She glanced up, into those cobalt blue irises. "Hm?"

"Tell me about your mom."

Her face remained placid as she considered the request.

**Everybody has to tell somebody.**

She smiled.

* * *

"Ms. Buick?"

The back of the teenager's head remained still. "Yeah, Barney?" she asked evenly, shifting only slightly in her seat on the bench as she looked to the sky.

"We have to put you back in, now," he gently ordered, pausing as the girl's posture gradually improved. "You have a session at eight-thirty tomorrow with Dr. Chilton and Dr. Ueto. You can come back out after that."

"I usually don't feel like going out after those." She stood. "But thanks." She turned to the brown-skinned man and smiled as she walked past him, in front of him. Beyond the landscape, at the door, stood another orderly, larger than Barney. He clutched a controller; it was small in his mitts, irrespective of its actual size. Mariko was calm as she walked toward him.

"Thank you," she said.

"For what, Ms. Buick?" Barney asked, following four meters behind her.

"For letting Asuka get close…for trusting me enough. Even though I've only been here just for a few weeks."

"I believe that has more to do with the Second Child's pull at Nerv than anything I did."

"Still, you and Dr. Chilton run this place from what I understand, and if it was up to him he would've zapped me." Her shoulders slouched slightly. "Again." She turned back to glance with visible hesitation. "I don't forget kindness, Barney."

"I don't doubt you, Ms. Buick. Everyone needs kindness."

She took in his polite disposition, then quickly faced forward again. As they approached the entrance the other man stepped back, revealing a red chevron that he depressed with three thick fingers. The door soundlessly swung open, dusting the darkening lawn in a swath of light that flowed around their bodies as if they were rocks in a stream.

Mariko walked through. "Hi, Mr. Watanabe." She beamed at the taller person.

"…Hi," he gruffly muttered at length, visibly agitated at the girl's affability, visibly relaxing as she passed, and then locking eyes with Barney…

Mr. Watanabe followed the silent order, and calmed down. He discreetly took a breath and followed when the dark-skinned man had too passed him. They turned from the main corridor to a side hallway, black save for circular pools of white light equally spaced beneath their feet and extending well past the pool they stopped beneath.

In the darkness, beyond the one-way transparent door that slid open with a swipe of Barney's security card, sat a bed and a sink and a toilet. That was it. Mariko stepped into her home.

"The medication, it's at the sink?"

"Yes," Barney immediately said in a soft baritone.

She gingerly stepped to the metal fixture and opened the small plastic container at its edge. Two pills, red. She dumped them into her palm and raised her arm to her mouth. She filled the paper cup at the side and put that to her mouth, too. After swallowing, Mariko looked straight at and walked up to Barney, opened her empty mouth, and then raised her tongue.

"Thank you, Mariko."

At that the young woman snapped her mouth shut and smiled. "You called me by my first name."

"There'll be a wake-up at seven-thirty tomorrow morning, okay?"

She nodded as she walked over to the bed. Then sat on it. Then sagged.

"Barney…thank you. Your attitude…you've made it easy for me. As easy as it can be. Even though I don't deserve easy, you know?"

"I know." He paused and pointed at "The lights-"

"-will go off a minute after the door closes," she finished. "Goodnight. Be safe driving home."

He gave a nod, the motion itself exuding warmth. He walked out and the door closed. Its electromagnetic locks engaged in a series of distinct clicks. The image outside the door became lost to a growing opaqueness, spreading organically for the corners of the entry. After half a minute it had consumed the last of the transparency.

She was still sitting, watching the door. And now she was raising her thin arms and her hands before her face…

…and touching her forefingers to the thumbs of the opposite hand, forming a box in front of her one open green eye –even as every corner in her room went black- and then speaking…

"Smile, Barney." She smiled herself.

Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Cli

* * *

When the light failing on the red horizon and the homes and trees, bushes, buses and hikers regained definition and ceased to blend into each other, he would be at home for the rest of his life.

Tanabe was a government-run maximum security facility straddled between Okaya and Shirojiri in Nagano Prefecture. It would take three hours for Agent Choi to drive him there. A half an hour passed and the large Korean had said nothing since he had been shackled, shuffled and stuffed into the backseat of the black Nerv cruiser. Silence was not a problem. He didn't expect Choi to hold a conversation with his captive, anyway, even though he had a right to complain to Choi, to someone.

He didn't belong here. He was being incarcerated for attempting to rectify an injustice, called a traitor, a criminal, a disgusting ungrateful murderer. Just like the old commander. But he knew the truth. There was another that should be in his place, instead of sitting in his living room, lamenting his past, feeling sorry for himself while friends, allies, dignitaries, thousands, millions who would never know his name lauded him, worshipped his supposed heroics as though he were a saint.

Seele and the JSDF couldn't kill the Third Child. He could not kill the Third Child. Mariko did not get the chance to kill the Third Child. The Third Child was fated to live. But just because the Third Child was fated to live did not mean he deserved to. That did not mean the Third Child was to be forgiven. Oh no…it was the Third Child that should be apologizing to him…_and_ to _her_, not the other way around.

Back then, there was no one within Nerv that did not sacrifice for the greatest good. There was no one within Nerv that did not understand that sacrifice was absolutely required, and that when one failed to sacrifice, for _any_ reason, someone else would pay.

That was how it was. The Third Child knew, knew and still did not care. And that was why she was dead. Just because the Third Child was fated to live did not mean others should sacrifice beyond what is required of them.

So Makoto Hyuga, former Operations Planning Manager, First Branch, would never apologize. Because he wasn't the one sitting beneath a stairwell and waiting for an end that he knew could not come to pass, the gravity of his fate pulling those in that did not have to die. If there was truly justice, the weight of Shinji Ikari's destiny should have crushohwhydidithappeniloveyoumisatoidon'tdeserveit andhekilledyoushould'vebeenhimoranyoneelseitwouldn'tmatterwhojustnotyouishould'veishould've justshothimandlaughedandinasuka'sfacethere'dbenothingjustlikemed him…

* * *

Hyuga could not determine if the sky, the vehicles, the buildings and trees had pulled themselves apart as he peered out of the window into inky blackness, but he could tell they were no longer speeding by him. The engine was dead, and Choi was still facing forward. The reason for these things was an uncertainty. What _was_ certain was the time and location; late, and not at Tanabe. He became aware of a third uncertainty as he unsuccessfully tried to control his arms and legs…why couldn't he?

"It is…amazing how many people hate them," Choi said, turning his head ever so slightly. His mouth was a hard small line as he spoke, as thin and dark as the shades that hid his eyes.

"As an intelligence officer," he continued, "you must have heard what I heard, everyday through our channels. They hate them. Completely. When the people learned what happened, it was enough. For not saving more, for not changing the world. All kinds of reasons. All of them pathetic. It did not matter that they were children. It's my responsibility to keep those people out, away from them. It is hard, when you have few men and even fewer men that understand why it is so important to keep them safe.

"Even if it is true, that the Angels are gone forever, it is imperative that they are safe. That is how I thank them." Choi paused, looked down, and then up again. "You, Mr. Hyuga, make my job very difficult."

Hyuga worked his mouth. "That was truly heartfelt." Yes, he _could_ talk. "And truly unbecoming for a truly dedicated upper level Section-Two officer such as yourself."

"You don't know me."

"I suppose not. But, how does driving me out into the middle of nowhere and sharing your bushido make your job any easier?"

One shot, two, and Hyuga jerked clumsily, somehow finding the control to bring a hand up to shield himself. The hand disappeared in a fine red mist, the wet thud of hot slugs exploding in flesh lost in the cacophonous reports of the third and fourth shots. The ravaged man jumped involuntarily with shot five, then slid into his seat as if trapped in invisible quicksand. Hyuga did not react at all to the sixth and seventh shots.

Eight.

Nine.

Ten.

"That's how," answered Choi.

Eleven.

He wasted three seconds to glare at the pulpy corpse, slouched behind him like a salary man lush, before lowering his pistol and retrieving his cell phone from his pocket.

"Yes." The calm voice was clear and crisp through the receiver.

Mr. Choi was succinct. "This is a secure line. The Captain will no longer be disappointing anyone."

"Thank you."

"Thanks will never be necessary."

Choi disconnected, and ten seconds did not pass before headlights crested the hill on which his cruiser sat. It revealed itself to be nearly identical to his own vehicle, and when Agents Yamada and Tanaka rose from the front seats and approached, he knelt in his leather seat and popped the trunk. Crisp grass crunched beneath him as he walked to the back of the vehicle, pulled it open, and retrieved the fluoroantimonic acid.

* * *

A thought came to Asuka as Shinji held her. "Hey."

"Yeah?"

"Who called you when everyone was getting up to leave?"

"Agent Choi. He was just making sure we're alright."

She humphed, and then her chest expanded against his. "Who asked him to do that?"

"Maya did, I think."

"After all we've done, he should be taking orders from _us_."

He said nothing.

End of In the Dark Room

A/N: I want to thank all of my readers and all of my reviewers, even those who don't like the story…and if you didn't like it, how the hell are you reading the author's notes at the end of the final chapter?

Special thanks to WarpWizard…for pointing out _every_ freakin' typo I've ever made…

Feigned annoyance aside, thanks WarpWizard, because in the end you've made my story better. Thank you. Hell, you'll probably notice a few in the first posting of _this_ chapter. I thank everyone who has given me a kind word. May your cereal be crisp and your milk fresh.

So what do I need to work on? Dialogue, for one. In particular, I will one day come back to and rework the first chapter of ITDR…who the hell am I kidding? I need to work on _everything_. Even so, it feels good to have written a story that people have taken an interest in.

What's the next step, story wise? A humor piece. I'm probably a quarter of the way through and it looks like I'll be finished in the next two weeks. And when it comes out and you think it's not funny, don't worry…it's a oneshot.

After that, I don't know. I have quite a few ideas, and I plan on writing at least six fanfics before I hang it up. So, because I feel like listing them:

Post 3I story centered on Shinji.

Post 3I story centered on Mari Suzahara

Pre 3I story centered on Misato

AU centered on Asuka - Oneshot

Continuation centered on Rei

AU Samurai Epic

Star Wars Crossover

Xardion has written (is still writing, I believe) the extremely popular_ Neon Jedi Evangelion_. So if I decide to write it, the Star Wars Crossover will most definitely be the furthest down the road.

I have not forgotten about the Battle Royale Crossover omake I am planning for ITDR. I'm going to write it. I _promise_…

Random A/N: There's a certain pride that fills me when I think that the largest anime convention on the east coast takes place in my hometown. Otakon, baby! Baltimore, August 19-21: I'll be there. Will you?

Thank you for reading and your criticism. Ja.

Next Chapter: Heaven or Hell: The ITDR AU Battle Royale Crossover

Next Story: Unnamed Humor Oneshot


	15. Possession

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is a Studio Gainax production, its characters created by Hideaki Anno. They say the word, and this story ceases to exist.

It is a sad commentary on the life of Asuka Langley Sohryu that Mariko Buick is not the worst thing to have ever happened to her…

In the Dark Room: Possession

By MidnightCereal

From her seat in front of the television Asuka Langley Sohryu heard Mariko Buick at the refrigerator, lightly shaking something. "Hey, whose soda is this in here?"

"Don't touch that. That's mine."

"Oh. Sorry."

Asuka didn't bother feeling guilty or selfish. Everything else in there was fair game. She liked that particular brand of cola, it was fairly expensive, and she just didn't feel like sharing that. Just that.

"Ooh! Mangoes! I can't remember the last time I had one of tho-"

"Don't touch that. That's mine."

Mariko may have groaned or murmured something, but the volume was up pretty loud. "So...this vegetable juice in here, that's yours, too, I'm guessin'?"

That was Shinji's. He made a bigger fuss about her downing the rest of his Itoen than she thought he would, and decided on the two liter carrot juice jug rather than the liter he usually purchased when they went grocery shopping. This was the closest thing Shinji Ikari had to an indulgence since...well...ever, to be honest. He was a good person, wasn't he? Shouldn't he be allowed one thing that was untouchable, one possession that was his and his alone?

"That's everybody's. Knock yourself out."

_Just didn't feel right telling her 'no' three times in a row...when did I become such a bleeding heart?_ The Second Child uncrossed her legs beneath the low table and winced. Why were her calves so tight? She didn't do anything today, if you didn't count the hours that the young photographer had damn-near talked her ear off. Asuka was unsure at first, but now she was certain: there was _nothing _interesting about Wiggle Stereoscopy.

It wasn't that she didn't like Mariko...it was just that the girl was disturbingly, unfailingly kind. She was always smiling, always listening, always taking other people's feelings into consideration; it was like living with the film negative of Rei...and now _she _was thinking in terms of photography!

Mariko got annoyed occasionally, but outside of the rare sigh or swear...did she get mad? Did she get_really _mad? What set her off, what was she scared of?

What happened to _her _mom?

Asuka, on a daily occasion, perhaps out of habit, found something to rue Shinji Ikari for. In the week that Mariko Buick had moved in to their flat removed a few kilometers from the center of Tokyo-3, he had brutally killed Asuka with kindness. And the reason he had done so sat down and folded her legs beneath one of the table's adjacent sides, setting her full cup down. Why was a large portion of the front of her shirt orange?

"Oh..." Mariko looked down at her chest and pulled at her stained white top. "Guess I knocked myself out, I guess. Cup was pretty full."

"You pig," Asuka said as she turned back toward the screen. On it, a girl, impossibly, sickeningly cute, shouted something, was encased in white light, and emerged with enough firepower hanging from her shoulder to sink the U.N.'s Pacific fleet.

Mariko laughed Asuka's words off. Of course she would. This girl would laugh off The Rapture. Where the hell was Shinji?

"I think he was meeting a friend or something." Then Mariko took another sip.

Asuka did well not to turn back. Her eyebrows, unfortunately, did not cooperate, and knitted. "He said that?"

"...no," Mariko answered after a second, and the blue-eyed girl took inventory of the green-eyed girl's hesitation. The Sixth Child thought that she was perceptive, that much was clear. "Asuka, why else would he be out on a Friday night? I mean...instead of being here with _you_? Or going out with _you_?"

"Shinji doesn't have any friends."

"I don't believe that."

Asuka scoffed. Softly scoffed. "You're a people person, Mariko, I can tell. But you're going to have to live here longer than a week to know that boy better than I do. A whole lot longer."

_I don't believe that._

"You think...he's made some friends?"

Mariko paused as she set down her cup, considering Asuka's question, and then just pursed her lips and shrugged. Great, _now _she wants to shut up...

"What are you getting at?" Now Asuka was looking at her, no longer bothering to seem uninterested. _No, don't you shrug your shoulders again! _

"Asuka...everyone needs friends. Even cute, growing young men..."

The German's mouth hung open with a slack-jawed half-smile as Mariko's words hit her. "Y-you think he has a girlfriend?"

_You think he's cute? Stop shrugging!_

"Well...no. He seems loyal to you. Is he loyal, Asuka?" Then Mariko smiled, thinly. "I mean, you know him better than _I_ do..."

_Stop it. Stop making me want to punch you._

"The class rep is pretty chummy with him."

"Yukie's chummy with _everyone_." Yukie was chummy with everything that breathed and reproduced. She was loud, demanding, perhaps a bit arrogant and a little self important, negative qualities she counterbalanced with unerring goodness, reliability, charisma...

...and a body that seemed as if it was poured into a school uniform that could not hide the sweeping curves of her torso, the fullness of her calves, or the blossoming chest that unfailingly reminded Asuka of a phone conversation she had overheard Kaji having one day, where the word 'melon' was used at least thirty-seven times...

Asuka then remembered her trip on the train, that day she had met Mariko. Yukie had been on that train with her boyfriend. They had been standing close to each other, holding hands, and smiling. _Oh_, how they were smiling...

"Besides, she's already seeing someone," It was Asuka's turn to smile thinly, "and she has _real _loose socks, if you know what I mean."

The other girl blinked at Asuka, but said nothing. "Mariko, never mind. My point is that she and Shinji have nothing going on."

_They had better not._

"Well, I _said _he was going out to see a friend, Asuka."

Uh-uh. Mariko wasn't worming out of this. "That isn't what you implied."

"I was implying a lot of things. I'm just saying he's out tonight, and I don't think he's alone."

"And I'm just saying that he isn't-"

"I'm not what?"

For the next ten seconds Shinji Ikari held his forearm up to block Asuka's half-hearted blows. Mariko was in position to have seen him come in. Why didn't she tell Asuka he was standing behind her? How _long _had he been standing behind her? Mariko was playing at some game, and Asuka was going to find out what. However, she was satisfied with just interrogating Shinji, at the moment.

"You didn't tell me you were going out."

He had half passed Asuka, paused, and then turned to face her. "I was just walking around." He shrugged and the Second Child took the silent interval to smirk in Mariko's direction. By the time the German was again in Shinji's face Mariko was laughing it off in the corner of her eye. "It wasn't like there's anything to do around here."

Some deliciously and terribly risqué things were at the tip of Asuka's tongue, but she bit it back and settled on, "Boring is as boring does, right Shinji?"

He smiled, tensely, for some reason. "You'd probably know better than I do." He smiled as he said it, and she was about to ask 'what did he _mean _by that?' when he walked further into the apartment and looked at Mariko...and then down at her shirt.

"I was gonna change it after the commercial break." The black-haired American tugged at it again. "It really looks that bad?"

"For a kindergartner at nap time?" asked Asuka, "No. For a seventeen year-old girl who's going to pilot mecha for the premiere government research institution in the Eastern Hemisphere..."

Mariko looked up coolly. At Shinji. She then pouted. At Shinji. "I didn't know it would bother you this much," she said in a low voice, Mariko's sultry voice, her_sexy _voice.

_I didn't know she could sound like that..._

"What a shame, Shinji. I thought _all _boys liked dirty girls in wet t-shirts..." Without further preamble, Mariko crossed her hands over her stomach to finger the edges of her shirt, and began to pull upward and over her head...

_What the hell is she DOING?_

"That's alright!" Shinji blurted out, and Asuka swore that he was making a conscious effort to keep his eyes from falling out of his he-

"DON'T _LOOK_AT HER!"

"I won't even wash a load until later tonight! Keep it on!" His eyes found Asuka's. "_Please_keep it on..."

Mariko drew the edges of her top down again, not enough, however, to hide the pleasantly defined line running down the middle of her hard, flat stomach. "Are you sure?" she asked, eyebrows knitting in disappointment.

Though the Second Child stood perhaps two meters away from the son of Gendo, he flinched as if he could feel her hard breath on the back of his neck. "Oh _yeah_."

Asuka remained standing and watched his back as he left the living room mumbling something about sorting the whites and bleach. When he had slipped into his room, she snapped to Mariko...who was _still _looking back to where he had been in the hallway! "What were you _doing_?"

It must have been the sharpness of the red-head's demand that lured the taller girl's gaze back to the living room, because Mariko had turned back quickly. "Just proving you right. And I think you _are_right. He wouldn't do anything behind your back."

"So you want me to thank you for _that_? _That's_ what you want?"

Mariko finally sobered a bit and let go of her shirt, letting it fall back around her waist, "C'mon, Asuka. I wasn't being serious. I mean..." she gave a short laugh, "besides, it's kinda your fault. You shouldn't have told me how fun it was to tease him like that-"

"Don't do that again."

Mariko's sterling smile faltered...

"But...but I was just-"

"Don't. Do that again. _Don't_."

...and then disappeared.

"I'm sorry."

_Don't touch that. That's mine._

End of Possession

A/N: Didn't plan on writing this. shrug Oh well. I'm still going to write that Battle Royale Omake. I promise.

Thanks, Belf. I couldn't spell 'waist' right to save my life.

I also think I should say this now: Yes, there _will _be a sequel to ITDR. It will take place 24 years from the end of the original story, be a five or six-parter, and will be told primarily from the perspective of a child of one of the principle characters. When will I get to it? When will I get to my story about Misato? My story about Rei? About Mari Suzahara? Yui Ikari? My AU oneshot about Asuka? I'm just goin' down the line. I'll get to it one day for certain.

Random A/N: Oh, I don't know…something about hams?

Thank you for reading and your criticism. Ja.

Next Chapter: Heaven or Hell: The ITDR AU Battle Royale Crossover


	16. Heaven or Hell

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is a Studio Gainax production, its characters created by Hideaki Anno. They say the word, and this story ceases to exist.

**_ON THE AIR_ for May 22, 2017**:

_**GOLF**_

Dunlop Phoenix Tournament at Miyazaki City 11:45 a.m.

TV Tokyo, (National Radio)

**_MISC_.**

Shiriowa Program 2017 Highlights 9:00 p.m.

Fuji TV

_**PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL**_

New Yomiuri (Giants) at Hanshin 1 p.m.

NHK-1, (NHK Radio 1)

Hiroshima at Yokohama 4:30 p.m.

NHK-1, (NHK Radio 1)

_**SUMO**_

Day 4 of Spring Basho at Nagano 2:15 p.m.

TBS TV, (Japan Radio Network)

Heaven or Hell: The ITDR AU Battle Royale Crossover

By MidnightCereal

The shed was not really a shed at all, but a two story one-room warehouse slouched in a clearing on the northwest corner of the island. On its four flaking faces, old coats of weathered white paint were visible in layers of lead-chip strata, as if cratering the sheer wall of a vertical planet. Wide windows sat high on the walls, and on sunny days formed boxes of tainted light that mapped the terrain of the dirt floor. Today, however, smoldering whips patrolled the skies and marshaled all traces of radiant warmth with vaporous shrouds.

That left overheard fixtures to tint the insides a ghostly blue; obsolete machinery huddled in rusting industrial aggregates; wood crates in varying states of waterlogged rot were scattered or stacked; a girl, face down in a small, shallow, squalid lake of standing water, oblivious to the lack of oxygen; the boy that ventilated her torso, sitting on the side of an old oil drum.

Any and all things pushed to the walls were laced by the diffuse shadow of a decaying catwalk, coiled high on the perimeter and strung to ceiling trusses, perhaps supported less by its corroded struts and more by self-manifest will. A moaning swept through the building's rusted open bay to compete with the whine of the swaying platform and the hum of the flickering lamps.

Had the girl now corpsing in the stagnant pool survived long enough to regard him, she'd have been unnerved. The boy gave no indication he heard the wind or the catwalk or the intermittent electrical buzzing, or felt the air as it caressed his grime-streaked jaw. Moisture trickled from his damp, unwashed brown hair, filling a bloody channel running across the bridge of his nose.

His gaze remained unflinching, carrying over the pool of filthy water and beyond the building's mouth before diving into the ubiquitous umbrage twining within seventy meters of his position. A ring of metal with a red blinking beacon circled his neck, shining like chrome, and he barely addressed it with involuntary swallows as he tarried.

At such an advanced stage of The Program, it was no small miracle he awaited anything other than death

Suddenly the black-green woods birthed that other thing. Perhaps.

Shinji Ikari squinted. It was quite possible from the distance between them that what had actually emerged hoped to get just close enough to ruin his throat and make the last hour he had spent sitting and staring and waiting utterly pointless. They were coming this way, whoever they were.

The Third Child activated. He was up, spinning, swiping at the pump action handle of his Remington 870, daring briefly to turn his back to swing behind his seat and kneel, bringing the shotgun to bear on-

"IT'S ME, YOU IDIOT!"

The barrel of his weapon sagged. And so did he, with a relief so palpable the teenager trotting through the bay door noticed, reacting with feigned disdain.

"Shinji, I swear to God…if you start crying, I'll kill you myself."

Real disdain.

"We got split up at the old hospital!" he yelled, his voice cracking under anonymous strain. He approached her now, loping. "That's five minutes from here! Why'd it take you-"

"_This_ is why. Happy?" Asuka remained doubled over a large duffle bag colored a muddy green. She lifted a soiled knee to maintain her grip on the heavy sac and something inside it clinked.

"What's in that thing?"

She managed a grin, a slow upturning of the corners of her mouth that seemed to take more effort than it should have. "The high ground, that's what. It's about six at night, almost? We get the new report in a few minutes, and if this shit hole is in a danger zone, we relocate and have about seven hours to get our act together."

"Don't say we'll have to move," he cautioned, his _new_ old calm asserting itself in his voice and posture as she coughed. "If there's a safer place on the island, I can't name it."

She coughed again and snorted, an odd phlegmy sound, before nodding at the dead, damp body in the middle of the building. "_Yeah_…doesn't get much safer than this, does it, Third?"

"That's Mitsuko. She followed me from the hospital…" Shinji managed a resigned sigh. "She had a gun…she didn't give me a choice."

"Just so you know, I would punch you _so hard_ if my hands weren't full," she said calmly. "You're talking to the wrong person if you want to be condemned for putting _that_ crazy bitch out of her misery."

Asuka shook her head. "_Crazy_ bitch…"

Before tailing her, he looked outside, into the woods. Nothing stared back. The girl in the disheveled New Hakone High School uniform shambled back towards Shinji's makeshift sentry post, pausing to readjust her pack. "Do you think anyone followed _you_?" he asked.

The red head grunted a negative. "Three guys were on me and I picked them off for sure. Well, Niida and Sasagawa, and that was halfway between here and the hospital. Someone else got Oda off my ass."

He paused and brightened at this. "Who?"

"I don't know and I don't care. I mean, I'm _grateful_, but in the end…" She trailed off and stopped halfway to his seat. She coughed again.

"You should let me get that."

"What am I,_pregnant_?"

"No, so if it's heavy I'll just carry it the rest of the way."

"Look, I ran almost a kilometer with this thing. I can make it twenty more feet." Asuka did make it twenty more feet, maneuvering slowly until she sat on his barrel with the heavy bag resting against her stomach. She looked up at him, blinking. "There _is_ no safe place here. We have seven hours to make a safe place."

Frowning, Shinji looked to a window tinted with translucent stains. "I know that. I just wish I knew who it was that helped you out. We could probably use them. Maybe."

"You know what _I_ wish?" she asked as a minute spasm wracked her small frame, "I wish that we never, ever meet the person that's eat carbon-shit diamonds tough enough to survive nearly three days here _on their own_. And I don't think they'll be interested in teaming up with the only two people standing in between them and a full BR Act pardon. Do you?"

Asuka's head hung down, and he stepped closer when at first she said and did nothing. "At least that's how I would've been…"

"Don't say that about yourself," he weakly chided.

"Why? Because it's true? Because it makes you nervous? Because you're not that naïve and you know me better than anyone else?"

"And that's why-"

"Besides," she blurted, "we win tonight, and we won't have to fight with _or_ team up with this guy."

The taller teenager opened his mouth, but no words escaped that would have rebutted the German's leaky reasoning. Her heavy eyes narrowed at his deep silence before she broke it.

"We're going to think of something. We've had less time to dig ourselves out of deeper piles of shit than this, and you know that for a fact. They can't kill me. They tried already. You're Shinji Ikari. C'mon, this is _your_ fucking world! You can't die!"

"Yes I can," he murmured. "I know because, like you said, it's my world. If you're sure there's only one person left besides us, then there's no point in both of us-"

"I want you to listen to what I say next, Shinji," she intoned, cutting him off with tender enmity. "Between now and one o' clock in the morning, we are going to get off of this island. Maybe not in one piece, but alive. _Both_ of us. So from now on, if you even entertain, for even a second, the idea of killing yourself to save me…if you leave me alone…I will _never_ forgive you for as long as I live."

Asuka's collar jumped as she swallowed. "Do you…do you understand me, Shinji?"

Her words or eyes or suddenly desperate tone got through to him, and he could only stare down.

"Tell me you understand. _Please_…"

He could only grimace, now.

"I understand."

"Of course you do," she remarked assuredly, seemingly unaware of the naked despair reorganizing his face…until now. "All you have to do for me is wipe that look off of your face. That's it."

"Okay."

"I don't blame you anymore, you know."

His knowing cobalt blue were tainted with an old false hope, but he asked anyway. "For…for what? Don't blame…"

Sohryu gave a rare laugh, shaky. "You really thought I was going to hold it over your head forever?"

"Yeah."

"Then why didn't I leave? _Years_ ago? Dummy…" She laughed again. Shakier. "Don't think you have to make up for it, because I'm not holding you to _anything_."

"…Why are you telling me this?" He whispered, suddenly infused with wariness. She coughed, and her soiled auburn tresses swayed as she shook her head.

"Because you can't protect me anymore."

"_Why are you telling me this now?_"

He dropped the shotgun when the answer dribbled down her calf like molten red wax.

He shook his head and stared at it, sounds climbing up his throat only to slip back as he gasped, over and over and over until she somehow smiled.

Instantly, Shinji was crouching inches from her, lifting the bag from her lap which was so red, and tossing the package to the side like it weighed less than nothing. His eyes locked onto a red blouse where a muddied, wrinkled white one should have been. He stared at the crimson splash for ten seconds before the sounds climbed out.

"YOU WERE STALLING?"

She shrugged, shrugged like dismissing study hall. "Tell me what the point would've been in you running off and getting killed trying to save me when it'd be impossibaaaAAAHHH!"

The girl screamed, squirming pitifully as her partner's fingers clumsily probed her imbrued, seeping torso.

"If I can…I can just find the _bullet_ and I can-"

"Stop touching it!" she seethed, spraying his face with spit and bloody freckles as she ripped his slick hands away. "There _is_ no bullet…I was cut."

Shinji's eyebrows twisted downward and twitched. "You stalled…it wasn't going to be this way, you…_bitch_…" His remaining lamentations were muffled when he sank into her lap and sobbed for the first time in over two years.

Asuka's ebbing vitality momentarily jumped back to full power, her glare tunneling through the back of his skull. "Be _what_ way, Shinji? You were going to wait until we were the last two left and then blow your head all over the island when I wasn't looking? That's what you crying about this tells me. You'd still do it even though I'd hate you forever?"

That part of Shinji Ikari deactivated, and the crying immediately ceased. "So _what_," came his low, controlled reply.

The dying girl allowed a spasm to pass before calmly ordering Shinji to "Look at me." He did when Asuka grabbed the sides of his head to meet his impotent rage, as plain as her gore on his ensanguined face.

"There's enough munitions in that bag to take out a small country," she stated bluntly. "You're going to use every bit of it to keep this…this predator from ending you, okay? Promise me."

The son of Ikari promised nothing as he alternated between blank stoicism and blind fury. The Second Child softened, leaning forward to touch her forehead to his. She swallowed a jagged breath.

"Don't ruin this…God, at least _pretend_ like you're not going to just give up."

"You mean like _you_ just did," he added, unblinking.

"I got caught, okay? I GOT CAUGHT. The only reason I even made it back here was because of…because I wanted to give you a chance. You don't have the heart to waste it." Her grip hardened. "Let me believe you'll get out. Say it."

"No."

She changed. She tonelessly wheezed through shivering lips, tears tracing her bloody cheeks. "It _hurts_. My stomach, it's all shredded and…and I feel _everything_. I want to throw up, but I can't. It hurts to breath. It hurts to see. It hurts to talk. So much. Nothing's worse than this."

She tilted her head until their noses touched, tilted more until their lips brushed, fighting the force weighing down her eyelids for a moment, just one more moment. "Shinji…don't make me beg…"

He didn't.

"…I'll win."

"Of course you will," she mouthed assuredly, seemingly oblivious to…

"It's okay. It's oka…"

…everything.

A keening wind slid past them, and carried the rest of her away.

Time unremittingly forged past her final words, and with every footstep he remained crouched before her, their foreheads married, his steady hands pressing hers to his temple.

That was how they were found. Real footsteps approached.

"HOW IS SHE? HOW'S SHE DOING?" Splashing.

"She's not doing anything."

His answer, or perhaps the flatness with which the answer was delivered, froze Mariko Buick a few paces from his kneeling form, and when she stepped out of the sooty water-

"SHE'S _DEAD_?" The girl's breath became short and unstable. "But I _saved_ her…I _know_ I saved her…"

"Just long enough, you did. Thank you."

"WHAT'RE YOU THANKING ME FOR?" she screamed, pacing behind him like a caged tiger. "You _jerks_…why'd you two leave the compound before I came out? I could've kept you safe!"

"We tried," the solemn young man answered, sliding back to allow Asuka to slump forward into his arms. "You know the game starts as soon as you leave the classroom. Someone was on the roof with a crossbow, and good enough to kill Tendo. We even saw you leave, but you ran the opposite way we did, and…"

He paused to adjust Asuka's weight in his thin arms, "and I didn't think anyone could move that fast. I knew you'd be okay, then."

"But Asuka's not okay!" she said.

Shinji Ikari rose, his arms full as he made his way to a long, low wooden crate. The Sixth Child choked back something. She adjusted her single strap backpack across her body as she watched him lay Asuka on the box and patiently interlock her fingers over her ruined stomach.

"I was right there, Shinji. But she just took off and I couldn't find her, she took off so damn fast." Her face was creased by immeasurable hatred for a half moment. Long enough to be dismissed as an aborted sneeze. "I should have done it…I wanted something good for once…"

Shinji advanced on her. "I wouldn't have been able to even say goodbye without you. I'm thanking you because _you're_ good-"

"Oh, _everyone_ says that," she spat. "I wanted them to and I liked hearing it, but they don't know what I can do."

"Mariko-"

"It's what I've been doing on this stupid _fucking_ island for three damn days and I just wanted them to be _right_ about me."

"_Mariko_-"

"Just _once_…"

"You're good," he said flatly, hugging her just as she lost composure.

"Shouldn't this…" she managed with unsteady breaths, "shouldn't this be going the other way around?"

"I was there when she left and that'll have to be enough, because I can't do anything else for her."

Mariko calmed at this, but didn't pull away just yet.

"At least," she began hesitantly, "it all didn't come down to you and her, you know?"

He sighed before saying, "All that would've meant was that Asuka had won. I'm supposed to be making my own decisions, and I'm choosing to lose this game. So you win, Mariko."

The girl swallowed over his shoulder. "But that's…you _know_ Asuka wouldn't let you do that-"

"She'll hate me forever, I know. But I don't owe this life to her. And you don't have what it takes to keep me here, either. No offence." She allowed him to hug her tighter. "It's over. Win and go home."

The American teen gave a fractured, synthetic laugh. "Y-you think I'm gonna _kill_ you? I can't kill _you_!"

It was six o' clock.

"_How's it goin', my little warriors?"_

All around them, all at once, was a rollicking, lilting march of blind whimsy.

And then Yonemi Kamon, Program director, ringmaster of the Cruelest Show on Earth, began the update.

"_I gotta confess to you guys -all two of you- this is always the saddest part of the contest for me. See it from my perspective…more than two whole days of top-notch soap opera, mixed in with a bit of triumph and old fashioned backstabbing, wild, desperate sex, the thrill of victory, the agony of being stabbed in the lower intestine…and before you know it, day three's half over and everyone smells like my dead cat. Just had to get that off my chest, that's always bothered me. _

"_Oh well. Can't win em' all, as all your classmates eventually found out. Except for…"_ Dry crinkling over the speakers, _"boy number four, Toshinori Oda. Jesus, Mariko, where's the fire? You didn't even give him time to shit himself!"_

Mariko remained in Shinji's arms, as still as the late Mitsuko Souma.

"_Don't feel bad for good ol' Toshi, not when you got traveling companions like boy number sixteen, Kazushi Niida, and boy number ten, Ryuhei Sasegawa."_ Kamon could have been smacking his fat lips. _"Now…this is where it gets good!"_

"Let go of me," said Mariko.

"_Every once in a while here on The Program, we are treated to genuine works of sanguine art. So I'd be a remiss, piss-ant ingrate to not personally thank our very own resident Rembrandt, for bestowing upon us…well…whatever the hell it was she did in that lighthouse to girls nine, Yuko Sakaki, twelve, Haruka Tanizawa, sixteen, Yuka Nakagawa, two, Yukie Utsumi, seventeen, Satomi Noda, and twenty-two, Aki Ando. So show off that cute little backside, Mariko, and take a bow! Just try not to kill anything when you bend over."_

"Don't hold me anymore."

"_Bumping the impartial lottery up two grades was the best decision I'd have the nerve to take credit for."_ The man made a smooching noise._"Call me when you get off the island, babe, I love a challenge…and I'm dying to know how you get their heads to just dangle like that."_

"Don't listen to him-"

"Whose blood did you think this was all over my shirt, Shinji? Please stop touching me…"

"_Girl number eleven, Mitsuko Souma. Girl number nineteen, Asuka Langley Sohryu."_ Kamon tsked disappointedly. _"Just something about those foreign women, you n' me both, Mister Ikari. You luck out and get hold of one and it's like you've hit the pussy jackpot! But, to turn down Mitsuko? I know she was packin', but what a _fucking_ waste. Or _not_ a fucking waste, you know what I mean._

"_Even if it really was that good, don't do anything drastic like stabbing yourself in the balls, because you'd think something like that would never get old. But you'd be wrong. If it's any consolation, you and Sohryu would have had ugly babies."_

"I would've named her Misato…"

"_Enjoy these last few moments, Mister Ikari. Play your cards right, perhaps Miss Buick'll let you get to second base before she hollows you out and uses you as an umbrella stand. If, on the other hand, you are running for your mother-fucking life minutes from now, as I expect you will, here are the danger zones: B-Five and E-Three after six-thirty, A-Eight after eight, D-Six and F-One from now until eleven, and H-Three until eight-thirty. That's H…as in Hyuga says hi."_

The music and Kamon's voice left on a sharp ridge of static. The rusted gangway swayed high above them, for a minute. A minute more.

"I wouldn't hollow you out and use you as an umbrella stand."

"I still don't hate you," he said.

The raven-haired girl shook.

"You played, Mariko? So what? I wasn't going to play, and I begged Asuka not to. And that worked really well, right up until Motobuchi tried to shoot me in the back. Then she played to save me, and I played because she did."

The Sixth Child countered instantly with faltering stability, "There is something seriously, fundamentally wrong with me, and that's why _I_ played, okay? I belong in this place, and now you're going to make me-"

He let her go.

"I wouldn't ever force you to do this. Not ever. You don't do anything. You don't watch, and if you're far enough away you won't even hear the gunshot. You heard the danger zones, didn't you?"

Mariko could only nod as she began to tear-up once more. "I should die. Right here."

"But you don't want to."

"But I_should_…something's telling me-"

Shinji's face exponentially hardened as he drew up the shotgun that had been leaning against a bevy of splintered crates. There was a metallic snap when he pumped the handle and aimed the muzzle between Mariko's widening eyes.

"What are you being told now?"

"That I want to live," she instantly replied.

"Are you sure?" The black barrel was steady.

"…_Yes_," she hissed.

The barrel was lowered. The hardness polymerizing his mouth and brow wasted away.

"Goodbye, Mariko."

She fixed his back with a dull emerald stare as he knelt before Asuka. "I should find Mister Hyuga, don't you think? When I get back, I can find him. I can slowly break him. For hours. For _days_. For you."

"Is that really in you? I think…you need help. _Serious_ help. Or at least you will once you leave. But of all the people you killed here, how many because you hated them? Or because they had wronged you?"

Mariko said nothing.

"Whatever it was that made you like this," Shinji continued softly, "I'm not about to contribute to it by adding vendettas to the list of excuses you have for being this way."

"You shouldn't have to _end_ like this…"

"Let's do this, then," Shinji suggested with resolute contriteness, "You find a way to bring Asuka back. And Misato. And Rei and Kaji. And Kaworu, and keep my mom from vanishing into nothing, and keep Asuka's mom from hanging herself for her daughter to find. Then, _maybe_, I'd consider fighting you for the right to stay here. Because otherwise, I think it's about time I pay for not remaking the world so that things like _this_ could never happen."

The Third Child paused, and when Mariko did not speak -did not make a single sound- he looked at Asuka. "If I had done it right, she'd be yelling at me right now. I'd be apologizing to her right _now_..."

Right now, Shinji was kissing Asuka Langley Sohryu goodbye.

There was a flash, then a click and a whirring sound.

"What was that?" he asked suddenly, pulling himself up as he spun to meet the only living thing in the vicinity. "What did you just do?"

That was when Shinji caught the small black rectangle that Mariko suddenly found the need to clutch to her chest. She swallowed and the collar around her neck leapt.

"I couldn't help…Shinji…it would've killed me not to have that shot-"

"A picture of Asuka?_Dead_?"

"Not her."

Understanding, complete, base comprehension flooded Shinji's face before it all gave way to the conviction that had been earned with the blood of all that had been dear to him.

"Give me the camera."

"Why?"

"You know why."

"I can't do that."

"Yes you can. You can give it to me and then walk away. A few minutes after that, you'll be declared the winner." He held out a hand, as steady as his cobalt gaze. "But first thing's first. Please."

He stepped forward, but she maintained the distance by backpedaling into the shallow pool. Filthy ripples raced from her ankles.

"I have to have this, Shinji…so you'll stay with me. You'll go right next to Jackie and I'd be able to see you everyday-"

"And see Asuka, too. So would every sick mind that'll want pictures of what happened here, because that photo will be on the MilNet fifteen minutes after you step off the island and they confiscate that camera."

The tall young woman watched him with severe trepidation, sloshing backwards through the contaminated liquid glass as Shinji reached for a bulge in his hip pocket. "Y-you can't take this," she stuttered, gulping once more. "I'll die without it."

"You'll die _with_ it," he established as his voice grew colder, "because you know giving me a reason to live means giving you a reason to die. You realize that, don't you? I don't lose when it _counts_, Mariko, and you're making this count."

"YOU WANT TO TALK TO ME ABOUT THINGS THAT COUNT?" she finally screamed. "AT LEAST YOU HAD ASUKA! AT LEAST YOU CAN BE NEAR SOMEONE AND NOT DREAM ABOUT TAKING THEM APART! YOU KNOW WHAT COUNTS FOR _ME_? HAVING A GOOD 'BEFORE' PHOTO!"

"Here. You can have this, too."

He absently flung the thing from his pocket towards her, and Mariko watched silently tumble over her head a black thing the size of an electric razor, crackling arcs of blue lightning bridging its silver prongs…

She was airborne in full, horizontal extension by the time the Taser touched down in the water, and she was rolling into a crouch as Mitsuko Souma began to convulsively splash.

Thunder shook the squalid structure as something beside Mariko's head disintegrated. Dazed, she scrambled on her hands and knees to a pile of rusted scrap. There was a metallic snap, roaring fire again, and an explosion next to her head once more. The Sixth made herself small behind her new hiding place. Two more rounds thundered to her and blasted debris from the fringes of the junk heap, eliciting a shower of sparks like white embers.

A low singing wind swirled through the large open bay, but other than that, silence. Mariko waited a full ten seconds before venturing a peak around her protection.

"Shinji, this-" was as far as she got before she had to pull back and politely allow the lead spray from his Tec-9 to embed itself in the back wall instead of her face. The typewriting ceased. "IT'S JUST A GODDAMNED PICTURE!"

Another squall of gunfire.

"YOU'RE CRAZIER THAN _I_ AM!"

"I'm not crazy," he said matter-of-factly, "just clinical. It's a family trait; even _mom_ orchestrated her own death. It just took me a couple of years to realize it. To accept it."

A sharp click as he expertly loaded a new magazine. "And if it was just a picture, you would've just given me the stupid camera."

Mariko Buick was searching now, her gaze twisting wildly around her cover; left and right to stacked crates with stenciled serial numbers, to junked trucks and tractors draped in tarps of knotted dust; the rickety -he was shooting again- the rickety promenade floating high above her head swinging from a ghostly force, the Sig-Sauer P239 in front of her, gleaming from its silver finish and Dalmatian patches of drying blood smears; skeletonized aluminum engine blocks lynched from a crane that ran the length of the building on a set of rails; tires with treads so worn they-

She dared to rise above her protection and stare down the barrel of her barking firearm, watching it buck twice and Shinji fling himself over a cluster of steel drums. Before she could fire again his semi-automatic weapon suddenly popped up over the metal cylinders and danced, jittering like a deranged Kabuki doll as Shinji blindly squeezed off another clip.

Her voice echoed twice over in the room, each reverberation capturing the sweet sickness of the original speaker. "Still think I'm good, Shinji? Because you wouldn't be wasting your ammo like that if you knew what I just thought about doing to your liver."

"You can't scare me," he said.

"It's never been about fear. It's about knowing about me, because no one has a choice when I get like this. I think they deserve to know something of me before I dig their eyes out, you know?"

There were two loud, hollow thumps against the crates to Mariko's right.

"No, I don't," said Shinji.

Then the grenades went off.

He watched as wood and metal and dust and Mariko scattered like autumn leaves. She was mostly in one piece and struggling to her feet, a charred plank sliding from her shoulder; long swaths of soaking crimson peaked from beneath the back of her white shirt, the flesh rent by claws of shrapnel.

She heard him readying his next weapon and she was whirling, aiming and squeezing, rewarded with empty, spring-loaded clicks.

"You wouldn't believe how trigger-happy Mitsuko was. Or maybe you would, since you're out."

She _was_ out. Out of ammo. Out of the warehouse, stumbling then sprinting on bloody, blurring legs. The veteran pilot pursued her, easily hefting the RPG-26 on his thin right shoulder. He approached the front bay, she the threshold of the encroaching flora. There…a square of wrinkled white with jagged red candy-cane ribbons…that's where he aimed before the forest consumed her.

There was a jolt against his collar as he knelt, and a smoky contrail lancing the black woods before sound became a painful thing. He rose with the blacks and grays billowing above the canopy. He stepped away from the warehouse, staring, frowning. It was his father's frown.

"IMAGINE HOW EASY THIS CAN BE!" he yelled, his voice marshaled by absolute control. "IMAGINE WHAT I'D LET YOU DO TO ME! YOU COULD BE PEELING ME RIGHT NOW! ALL IT'S GOING TO COST YOU IS ASUKA'S DIGNITY!"

Only the smoking deflagration just beyond the brim of green-black answered him. The corners of his mouth bowed further.

"SEVEN HOURS, MARIKO! LESS THAN SEVEN! RUNNING ISN'T GOING TO STOP THAT COLLAR FROM RIPPING YOUR THROAT OUT, UNLESS YOU RUN BACK _HERE_! I'LL BE WAITING."

He had to wait the length of time it took him to turn around and take a single step.

Because it took no time at all for Mariko to break his ribs.

Shinji flew backwards, gasping from the forearm smash to his midsection. She stood between him and the warehouse, waiting for a nameless cue to finish him and not just breathe and watch him struggle to do the same.

The order came.

She strode robotically, her arm swinging behind her to purchase a smooth, wooden haft. The axe blade swept out from the handle -gore-lustered, dulled from application to heads and spines, shins and slippery entrails…

…to Shinji Ikari, curled over his broken torso, hacking up wet and warm things as Mariko hovered over him, lower. She was lower, a knee to his chest, a foot at his back. She was sighing.

"How about that, Shinji…you got to me," the green-eyed Child breathed, turning him over to make it easier to bisect his face. "Too bad for you, 'cause Kamon was right; I would've let you get to _HRRRK_!"

A tremor ran though her. So did the dagger pinned through her left breast up to its hilt.

Her eyes reduced to points of jade in wide white saucers, locked on the foreign hands at her punctured chest. Vital viscous streamers raced from the wound and over his hands in channels of hot syrup.

But it probably wasn't syrup.

"…second base," she hissed.

Mariko listed to her ventilated portside, sliding off of Shinji and crashing beside him sans further utterance.

She was still. For a minute more, so was he.

Shinji got up in sections. Propped up on his elbows. Up on a knee, panting. Rising now, dragging his other foot forward to stand straight and ta"aaaAAAR_RGGHHH_!"

She was still. For a minute more, so was he.

Shinji got up in sections. Carefully.

He took Mariko's axe, and floated above her as if waiting for his own sign. None forthcoming, the Japanese boy staggered back to the warehouse, stopping periodically to agonize. He endured, however, and ventured into the building…

And then something told him to snap a wide glare back to where she fell, only to find…Mariko Buick with a knife lodged in her chest, lying on her ravaged back. Cooling.

Like Asuka.

* * *

"Gah! What the…" Mariko actually shivered as she slipped into the living room. "Why's it so cold in here?"

"What's it matter?" the German sighed as she sat on the couch, luxuriating in the (super) chilled apartment air. "They don't have air conditioning in Nagoya?"

Mariko shrugged. "Sure they do. They got common sense, too."

"Wanna talk to _me_ about common sense…" Asuka groused. Then putting a finger to her pursed lips, "could it be that you actually _are_ cold-blooded?"

The American tiredly groaned. "I'm not trying to fight you, okay? I'm just asking…turn it down a little?"

"All in favor of not taking full advantage of the miracle that is automated household climate control before we all venture into the never-ending swelter of the tit-sweat, stroke-generating Post-Second Impact, Post-Third Impact Tokyo-3 summer, raise your sweaty, _sweaty_ hand."

Rolling her eyes, Mariko slowly reached for a ceiling vent shooting knives of chilled air into the space.

"All not in favor…" and Asuka lifted a scarred arm.

Then she kicked Shinji, who had sat on the floor looking small and lost as his flat mates bickered. Flicking an apologetic look to the green-eyed one, he raised his hand.

"Misato did always say AC is man's triumph over nature," Asuka gloated before smirking at the other girl. "And I've never met an Eva pilot that couldn't appreciate that. _You know?_"

"And if I knew this was all it took to get you to talk about Misato," Mariko said gently, "I would've turned on the heat weeks ago."

_The Wall_ went up, and Asuka's mouth became small. She touched Shinji on the shoulder as she stood.

"Get me when you're ready to go." She brushed by Mariko, grimacing. "Do whatever you want with the thermostat."

When the red head's door snapped shut, Mariko stormed over to the (new) coffee table and sat down heavily. "What the _hell_? I can't even talk to her about crap if _she_ brings it up!"

Shinji favored her with a tentative smile. "She'll talk to you about most things. Unless the fight you two had was that bad."

The short-haired girl laughed, a little, nervous sound. "Didn't buy the story about the dog, huh?"

"No."

Mariko stopped laughing. "It's her fault, you know. She was going through all my pictures for some reason, just rummaging, like a big red raccoon. And she just saw some she wasn't supposed to…"

Shinji reddened considerably. "Ohhhh…" He shifted uncomfortably.

Mariko started as if to counter him, but stopped as her shoulder drooped. "I just really wish that was the whole story. There was some private stuff in those books, and maybe any normal person would get a little freaked…I wouldn't know…"

He looked stupidly at her. "Me neither. To be honest. Sorry."

"Do you think I'm weird?" His eyebrow twitched at her question. "I mean, do you look at me sometimes, and just go, 'Why's she here? What's she doing?'"

"No, I don't."

"'Why won't she get her own damned apartment and leave me and my girlfriend alone?'"

"Asuka's not my girlfriend."

She leveled something admonishing in his direction before lowering her head on the table with a painful sounding _clunk_. "_Ouch_…I think those things, sometimes. You all are nice. Even Asuka on good days. But, God, the tiniest thing happens and it's like a plane with all your family on it crashed into the Indian Ocean."

"Toshiro Taniguchi."

"Who?"

"He was a classmate of mine in Junior High. Mine and Asuka's. His mom and sisters were on Flight 707 from Kansai…"

Mariko tensed.

"Asuka may have been a little obnoxious about it, but she had a point. Eva pilots do share some things. My guess is that no one should be able to judge you-"

"I want to hurt you."

She looked up and saw confusion and concern take turns twisting his mouth and brow. Mariko did not turn away from it.

"Two things, Shinji."

"…Okay."

"First…don't ever let me hurt you or Asuka. Never give me the chance."

"Okay."

"Second…when we leave out, please don't let me forget my-"

* * *

"-camera..."

And just like that, consciousness swarmed all over him.

He drew up from where his head had laid next to Asuka's, not bothering to look outside as furtive sounds inside the warehouse made their way to him. Small sounds. Tinny. Scratching, shuffling, sneaking. Creeping…

Shinji was standing with a wood-axe and Beretta escort, favoring his left side when something in his right side shifted. He yelped, and favored his right side when something in his left side shifted.

Clinking. Creaking. All along the wall to his left, so he shambled that way, crouching, reducing his signature and the pain immolating his torso. He was soon below the old catwalk, its shadow dicing him as he touched the wall to correct a momentary imbalance.

Rotting boxes were lined up to his right and running parallel to the wall at his left, forming a makeshift aisle that ran all the way down to a warehouse corner…the one closest to the front. Shinji could see all the way down only in patches. Most of the view was obstructed by all manner of tall and precariously arranged piles of bulk garbage.

He caught a black blur in an unobstructed patch, somewhere between him and the far wall. The teenager looked behind him, and when nothing inhuman plowed into his ribcage with impossible force, he turned back around to venture forward.

Shinji was halfway down when he heard scuffling, just a few meters away. He stilled himself completely; closing his eyes and dipping his head to focus on the weak, diffuse, echoing sound. Screeching to his right, now, beyond the wall of crates that exploded inward and toward him as they yielded a mass of hurtling metal now slamming into him, popping something vital in his body.

The sounds of wood, of crashing and chaos subsided. His ears began working again, though his left arm did not.

But Mariko lifted him by it anyway. The gun in his broken hand fell to the ground in a tap-dance clatter.

Shinji managed, "Y-you threw…threw an _engine block_ at me…"

Mariko managed to reach to her left breast with her free hand, grasping the leather-bound hilt growing from it. And pulling. Being rewarded with dampened scraping as the blade left its flesh-scabbard, the crimson glint along its edge showing violet under the indigo lighting.

Reversing her grip and driving the steel fang through his hand and the wall, him screaming, it all happened so fast it might as well have been simultaneous.

"It was a _small_ engine block," she said.

She fractured.

"Why'd you let me hurt you?" she cried. "Why'd you promise it wouldn't happen and let me believe when you _know_ this makes me sick…"

She lifted her head to look for an answer in his twisted face, her desperation met with gross intractability.

Mariko stepped away, her air intake so ragged it hardly passed as breathing. "You…_please_ trust me to do this right. I swear to you, I won't make this hurt-"

"Because I feel _so good_ right now," Shinji finally spat when he blinked back into consciousness.

She put her hands to her red breast as the axe in his right hand rose, poised to…

"What're you…what the _fuck_ are you _doing_?" she whispered.

Before Shinji Ikari went berserk, he regarded the Sixth Child with abject, unadulterated, unconditional pity.

After the axe went through his left wrist, Shinji Ikari went berserk.

Mariko could only stare at first as he swung and swore at her in blind, animalistic fury. She parried just as the gore-slicked blade cleaved the air where her shoulder had been. The girl was backpedaling now, startled but ducking and dancing warily, gauging the distance between her and the primal dervish attempting to split her skull.

Shinji launched a whirling, decapitating blow while spitting bloody obscenities, but the weapon hit stale air again as she reared back. In the half second it took for momentum to spin Shinji halfway around, Mariko went on the offensive, dashing in just in time for the butt of the axe handle to complete its round trip and break something in her face.

"I think you're slowing down," he said, his first intelligible words since his left arm became a purpling, shattered twig terminating in an oozing stump.

Mariko could not even manage words as she lay in the fetal position and huffed, cupping the split flesh on her broken cheek.

"It's not just because you're tired. You're special, I think, and you wouldn't get tired under normal conditions."

She tried to stand.

"You're dizzy."

She fell.

"You're having trouble breathing, like someone's trying to choke you."

Mariko gritted her teeth and rose on rubbery legs, blinking furiously. Then she lurched forward and vomited.

"You're sick to you're stomach."

Her confused green eyes locked on him as she tried to speak, but her stomach betrayed her again.

"Do you think it's the island, Mariko? The people and the killing, is that making you sick? Or is it the poison I had wiped all over that knife before I stuck it in you?"

The girl slurred something before a drunken force pulled at her, causing her to tumble backwards. Oblivious to his maimed limb and liberated hand, Shinji began stalking her.

"I still don't hate you," he said. "You know that? You're still damaged, still just a girl. You're an Eva pilot. You still have things that you can live for. I only have one thing. As soon as you give it to me, I can give you the antidote."

She shook her head and made a pitiful sound in her throat. He threw her a simpering look, further walking her down as she approached the bay door.

"You don't have to hurt me anymore. I took what you said to heart, Mariko, and I'm just following through on my end of the bargain. So just…stop."

Mariko wiped at the streaming gash below her eye, and then backed into something. A metal railing against the building's front wall. It belonged to a stairwell which rose to the platform ringing the warehouse meters above them. Quickly but clumsily she swung around and began to ascend. Predictably, he followed.

"I should let you in on something," the boy said as he rose with her. "The chances of you winning the game _and_ keeping your camera are exactly zero-point-zero percent. I'm not being arrogant, either. It's how this world works."

She suddenly swooned, slipped and smacked her tailbone on a cold steel tread, but she was up again within a blink.

"I told you how Third Impact worked for me. I was getting really good at seeing things and understanding them. Before I blew it, I mean. It came to me like a spreadsheet, almost. Men and Women: Yes. Stupid people, angry people, people who're too smart for their own good: Yes, yes, and yes. Flying people, people that breathe under water: No and no. People that get off on being jerks for no good reason: I couldn't tell you why, but for some reason, I said yes."

The back of Mariko's head was level with the catwalk. Her gaze was leveled on him, fearful.

"Asuka never told me about her mom. I saw it for myself. I could see it like it happened to me, and maybe if I had known you, if I had been close to you back then, I would've seen what happened to your mom-"

"SHUT UP!" she finally shrieked, "SHUT THE FUCK UP! STAY AWAY FROM ME!"

"No." And he stepped lightly as she retreated on the swaying platform, turning a corner to withdraw along a perpendicular wall. "There's just one truth that matters right now, anyway. I _can't_ lose, Mariko. So you can run away from me…or _at_ me, if you like. It won't matter in the end."

She wept softly through clenched teeth. "I can't see without my _mom_…" The fact seeped from her like air from a punctured tire. Mariko could only deflate further, defeat crushing her into the grated platform coated with her own plasma. "Don't…don't take her…"

"But it's written in stone. You're stuck on an island where you die in a little more than six hours if someone else is breathing. You don't have any weapons. You're bleeding profusely, and internally, probably. You have neurotoxins circulating through you, and only I have the cure. I'm not trying to live. I just want the camera to save Asuka the…shame. You will belong in this world if you just make saving you a goal of mine."

Some base agent in his final words instantly stilled her shivering as she cowered against the rust-stained guardrail.

It made her smile. "I…I understand." It tore spattering, hysterical noises from her constricted windpipe.

And then it made her stand.

"He was _right_…"

The metal around them protested as the maimed boy silently reassessed the situation.

"He was right!" she repeated, lost in her epiphany, somehow commanding her failing body to stay upright.

"Who was right?"

She thumped her head with a blood-caked finger. "Think about it! You keep telling me you fucked up Third Impact! You were supposed to get rid of me, and you_fucked it up_!" Mariko laughed or cried. Or both.

Had it not been for the compound break in his left arm, his amputated hand, his fractured ribs or separated shoulder, the confusion that passed over his face might have been more obvious. Not by much, though.

"I didn't screw up that bad," he said finally, inching towards her. "There's a place for everyone here-"

Delirium vaporized from the heat of perverted righteousness. "Oh, like there's a place for all those Self Defense soldiers that helped kill Misato? Like there's a place for your _dad_?"

Her strings were cut for a split second, but she caught herself and stared at him. "You should've sent me with them. Because…now? Now I'm _free_."

"No, you're only free if you give me-"

The Sixth waved drunkenly at him.

"Shinji, I think you're nice. I think you're lovely. I want to kiss you. But shut up. Shut up and realize that we're at an impasse, here. I'm not_ever_ giving you my most cherished, sacred material possession, because that thing's been places that you don't want to go. _But_…" And she held out her index finger. It looked broken. "But…I don't belong here. You don't want to stay. And Shinji, it doesn't get anymore symmetrical than _that_."

Mariko lunged at the nearest support cable and grasped it. Her thin arms hardened. She pulled down. The corroded strut connecting the section of catwalk they stood on fractured like peanut brittle, snapping away from the truss above them. A corner of the grated platform shot downward as the three other support cables strained to pick up the slack. The gangway swung like a trapdoor as another fixture yielded.

Had this all taken longer than a second to transpire, Shinji Ikari could have done more than open his mouth in a silent scream.

They twisted in a soundless vacuum, waiting for gravity's hand to fling them down and dash them across the wood and steel and dirt topography.

They did not have to wait long. Sound erupted and died again.

Nothingness began blanketing the island the moment New Hakone's Junior Class 3-B stirred from their drug-willed slumber to find themselves imprisoned and collared like strays awaiting euthanasia. Nothingness came to them individually, in pairs or groups, at the business end of black rifles and arrowheads, by thirsty tempered edges or hands far too strong to belong to a person. At last, it rolled in to claim its final, stubborn prize.

And then Mariko ruined it all by breathing.

Three minutes passed before her neck and eyes agreed to work in concert, allowing her gaze to loop around her in agonizing, glacial arcs. Her field of vision was obscured here -here being the remains of the crate she landed in/on. Her insides were also pooling around her outsides. So she did the sensible thing and rolled out of the damp, splintered place with poor sightlines, and spilled the remaining two meters onto the dirt floor in a decidedly bone-filled heap.

The poisoned teenager fought to bring her legs under her, to keep down what her stomach kept bringing up, to see out of her right eye, which was slowly but surely shutting itself from the light of the outside world. The first thing happened and she stood. The second thing did not, but she only dry-heaved this time. The third thing was inconsequential to her current action; Mariko only needed one eye to inspect the camera, which came through unscathed.

Synthetic venom ravaging her, holes in her chest, waist, and back milking her dry, she sighed in relief.

It was her bad eye that found Shinji, and found a sheered, twisted iron staff that rose from a metal aggregation on the ground.

Through him.

Pieces of him clung to it and shimmied down like gobs of strawberry preserves.

"Like a starfish…" she slurred to herself, sleepwalking to him.

_Plip plip plip_, as her bloody teardrops descended, spattering on his peaceful face. Mariko paid her cheek no mind as she stood over him and depressed the power button on her old Nikon D2X. The screen washed over in soft light and she could see him though it, blissfully unaware of the oxidized, perforating pike.

"I belong to my own truths, thank you," she whispered in a choked rasp. Mariko was flicking a thumb to zoom in on his head when her eyes glazed over. She snapped back to correct her cant, inhaling sharply as she refocused on Shinji.

Shinji stared back. She didn't notice the axe.

The girl pulsed, shuddering in response to the hard thump against her left thigh; blood cascaded from it like stew over the side of a boiling pot. With her foundation compromised, Mariko sank. The wherewithal to plant her hands at his sides kept the sheered metal shard from puncturing her and running her through. Just like him.

He snatched up a filthy handful of her ruined shirt to make her just like him. He wrenched downward wordlessly, looking through her, siphoning her own fading light to bring her low, to Asuka's level, their mothers' level. All of their rotting mothers.

That mouth of his propagated across his visage, the crusted fault welling with blood, his throat filling with sibilating moans which grew in urgency.

Her arms shook as she gritted her teeth and tried to lock her elbows, but she drew nearer, gasping as the serrated ferrous edge raked narrow channels along her stomach.

Deeper now.

Air burst from her abruptly with sobs and deviant laughter.

Counterfeit instinct took over and she swung mindlessly, dashing bits of his face and black plastic, flip-chip packaging and worn rubber. He was looking at her still, holding her, wheezing. Her arm blurred again and regained definition at his caving trachea, killing the whining sounds before rising and blurring a third time. A fourth time.

A fifth, sixth, and seventh. Eighth, ninth…

Roiling, keening giggles were eclipsed only by reverberating cracks as his face pulped. Collapsed. Shifted…

He was still looking, still holding.

She was still laughing as she bent his clutching arm at an obscene angle with an obscene snap.

He was still looking.

She was still laughing when her fingers dove down, found round, glinting orbs…and squeezed.

She was still laughing.

It was a while before she stopped.

* * *

**END PROGRAM**

Battle Royale Concludes with Foreign Citizen Victor, First in Program History

_By Kouji Kurata_

Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

Monday, May 22, 2017; Page E01

TOKYO-3, May 22 – When the final shot had been fired and blow landed, one person remained, as usual. For the first time ever, it was a foreigner.

Asuka Langley Sohryu was officially declared the victor of this year's Battle Royale, today at 20:43 JPT by Program officials. The seventeen year-old girl, an American citizen of mixed German and Japanese ancestry, is the first foreigner in history to survive the three-day trial and emerge victorious. Excluding this year, thirty-seven gaijin have officially participated in the annual event since its inception in 2003.

Yonemi Kamon, this year's Program director, believes Sohryu's sharp mind carried her through the day – By the age of thirteen Asuka had already graduated from a top German institution with a degree in applied math, and had received an honorary degree at America's Duke University, located in Durham, North Carolina. Kamon also intimated the girl was unusually skilled with a variety of firearms and several forms of unarmed combat.

"Someone with Miss Sohryu's abilities would have been a favorite in any year," he opines, "but I couldn't help but be a bit disappointed one of our kids didn't pull this one out."

From the last four of the initial forty-eight contestants, only two, in fact, were Japanese: Mitsuko Souma, who survived through half of the third day through "cunning" (Kamon raises an eyebrow), and Shinji Ikari, Sohryu's partner, who was similarly proficient with firearms and melee weapons. It is reported that Ikari defeated Mitsuko.

Despite the success Souma, Ikari, and Sohryu had achieved throughout the course of the game, none accounted for more eliminations than Mariko Buick, the last of the Final Four.

Buick, also American, was responsible for twelve of the forty-seven outs, including Shinji Ikari. Her elimination totals (See: **BR Box Score**, page E04) do not count herself, although her game ended when she knowingly walked into a danger zone and automatically detonated her radio collar.

"She actually bowed," Kamon says. "Can you believe that?"

Kamon asserts that Mariko, Shinji, and Asuka were affiliated with Nerv, a research institution under the auspices of the United Nations, and whose role in the December 20 3-I event remains highly disputed (See: **Nerv Captain Gunned Down**, page A24).

Could the children's remarkable success during this year's Program run be attributed to their association with Nerv? Kamon thinks so.

"When Nerv was still a paramilitary outfit," he says, "it was rumored they used young teenagers to pilot their machines and fight the Angels.

"The things that adults will do to mere children…I get sick just thinking about it."

Once Sohryu was confirmed the victor by Program officials, she was airlifted via MEDEVAC from Shiriowa --the island on which the game transpired -- and is now recovering from her injuries in an undisclosed location.

To Yonemi Kamon, it is no small miracle the American girl will recover at all.

"Our onsite medical staff took one look at her and their jaws just dropped. For a long span of minutes, Asuka was actually, clinically dead, and none of our doctors can say for certain why she didn't stay that way."

Added Kamon, "Some of us are just made special, I guess."

_Koushun Takami contributed to this article._

End of Heaven or Hell

A/N: That's some bullshit, man. Asuka being alive even though she was mortally wounded. After all, there's nothing in ITDR suggesting that Asuka is fated to live through all manner of grievous bodily harm due to a little divine tinkering during Third Impact.

Or is there?

Over the top, melodramatic, ultra-violent. Adolescents that can absorb far more damage than should be humanly possible. Yup, sounds like Battle Royale to me. I had two choices, either I could have Shinji and Mariko fight… or I could have them **FIGHT**. After all, that was the whole point of this, wasn't it? So I decided on just throwing shit in there for the hell of it. After all, this is an AU of the ITDR universe, not the original anime. I love writing myself licenses for doing whatever the hell I feel like.

Back to _Reality_ for me. No, it's not dead. I've been working on this for literally a month and a half. Over Christmas. On New Year's Day. It's finished! I'm done and I cannot believe it!

Thank you very much for being patient, and I hope you enjoyed it. Because there's two or three more side stories coming. Some day. Perhaps when I finish NTR, which will be a little while. Chapter four of that story will be out in perhaps three weeks. The plan now is to post them as I finish them.

Random A/N: Nuthin', man…y'all ain't tired of reading my shit, yet? I know _I_ am…

Oh, what the hell…one more?

Everyone Dies

By MidnightCereal

Roused by the sudden drop in ride quality, Shinji peeled his eyes open and peered out of the bus window.

He did not like what he saw.

"CLIFF!"

He, Asuka, Mariko, Yukie, Aki and Maya screamed.

Plummeting ensued.

End of Everyone Dies

Thank you for reading and your criticism. Ja.

Next Chapter: Our Lady of the Blueberry Waffles


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